A queer Tamil woman born in New York with a sailor’s tongue and an auburn-haired woman with a soft British accent could sing many many things — but for both vocalists ganavya and Jahnavi Harrison, it would seem they keep returning to songs of bhakti, or devotion, as described in Hindu philosophy. This particular release, ‘The Bee,’ draws from the quietest parts of their devotional practices. A song that was born in front of ganavya’s altar in Berlin while Harrison was visiting, the recorded version sounds as pensive and as private as its first rendition did.

While ganavya and Harrison were both trained in various Indian classical arts as children, both their musical lives ultimately draw from the devotional practices of their families: the anti-casteist pilgrimage tradition of the Varakari Sampradaya for ganavya, and the Gaudiya Vaishnava tradition, more often recognized internationally as ISKCON, for Harrison. They quietly ferry these centuries-old traditions into the future in their own ways: ganavya’s rendition of the “Pasayadan” (from ‘Nilam,’ released on LEITER in 2025) appeared on Barack Obama’s favorite songs list, while Harrison has collaborated with artists like Willow in creating devotional songs. It’s not the first time ganavya and Harrison have braided their traditions together: older examples including Harrison’s Grammy-nominated “Into The Forest” and “Just Drink The Name”.

At first glance, the traditions are far apart: Gaudiya Vaishnavism was founded in the 15th century, with ISKCON’s founder A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada founding the organization in 1966, with its songs primarily being in Bengali or Sanskrit. Meanwhile, the Varakari Sampradaya sprouted around the 12th century, with no formalized founding, made of a collection of poets daring to translate Sanskrit texts like the Bhagavad Gita into the common language of the time: Marathi. Harrison’s family is not Bengali, and ganavya’s family is not Maharastrian; yet, their families were drawn to these exact specific devotional practices that would profoundly shape them both. The common thread in both devotional practices is achingly simple: both traditions strongly believe that divinity belongs to everyone — that no caste, race, gender, sexual orientation or identity — nothing places one human closer to God than another. The only thing that matters, both traditions say firmly, is that we keep trying to reach towards something larger than us, together. And what better way, both traditions say emphatically, than to sing together?

Recorded live in an hour in Berlin’s Saal 3, Funkhaus, before a flight to London for ganavya’s Barbican show, neither Harrison nor ganavya had expectations for the session: ganavya was sick, Harrison had just spent days singing and experimenting in the studio with other material. And still, they both decided to release it, as an ode to the core of both their devotional practices: a song, or a person, is not about being perfect: it is about the trying.

‘The Bee’ opens with ganavya strumming her ukulele, until Harrison and ganavya both start humming as if they were sitting together, near a river. Harrison opens the lyrics by singing a Sanskrit poem written by 15th century Gaudiya Vaishnava poet Rupa Goswami, where the poet cries: “please let the bee of my mind / be offered the nectar-honey of [Krishna’s] lotus feet.” ganavya begins braiding in a poem by the 12-century Sant Dnyanesvar, singing the onomatopoetic “runu junu” to indicate the sound of a busy bee-like mind — “let go of these bad habits, and find the sweet fragrance of devotion,” the poet implores. Later, Shahzad Ismaily overdubbed soft guitar lines from Leo Abraham’s studio in London on a day off. And so, two poems — centuries, languages, and kingdoms apart — come together now, being sung by two unlikely daughters of traditions, proving devotion’s continued belonging in today’s world.