Ganavya - Nilam Ganavya

New York-born, Tamil Nadu-raised singer and transdisciplinarian GANAVYA – “among modern music's most compelling vocalists,” according to the Wall Street Journal – has announced details of a new album, Nilam, due May 23, 2025. It follows last year’s Daughter Of A Temple, Gilles Peterson’s BBC 6 Music Album of the Year, similarly declared one of 2024’s Top 10 Best Global Albums by The Guardian, who applauded GANAVYA’s ability to harness “the power of communal harmony to touch something deeper than song.” Co-produced by Nils Frahm at LEITER Studio in Berlin’s Funkhaus complex, the new album by “the singer whose work,” says the New York Times, “feels like prayer…with listeners hanging onto her every word” will be released by LEITER on vinyl and via all digital platforms.

Listening to the remarkable Nilam, it seems implausible now that its inception might ever have been in doubt. So astonishing is its stillness, so profound its communication of sentiment, it feels as if it was always meant to be. A celebration of the ties that bind, and possibly the most tender-hearted music we’ll hear this year, it’s intimate and honest, a poignant expression of gratitude for the blessings which keep us grounded, if only we’ll recognise and welcome them. Indeed, it could have been transmitted directly from soul to stereo, from the way ‘Not A Burden’ lifts a weight off the world’s shoulders to the peaceful ‘Sees Fire’, with ‘Land’’s gentle groove full of space, ‘Nine Jeweled Prayer’ serenely precious, and, throughout, GANAVYA’s vocals like ripples on a lagoon.
 
Yet the truth is it owes its existence to chance – an entity, like truth, to which GANAVYA is forever faithful – and the few days between her 2024 Berlin sold out debut and another sold out performance at London’s Union Chapel. This opportunity, she was persuaded by LEITER’s co-founder Felix Grimm, could be exploited to capture at last songs she had often performed live. And so, accompanied by long-time touring companions, bassist Max Ridley and harpist Charles Overton – with whom she’s toured over a decade, describing them as “two of [her] most precious friends and teachers” – she entered the hallowed Funkhaus with Frahm behind the desk.

Nilam’s central theme, GANAVYA confesses, is “doing what we need to do to keep carrying on.” This perhaps isn’t surprising given her touring not one but two albums in a single year. Earlier in 2024, she’d released the equally acclaimed like the sky i've been too quiet, recorded with Shabaka Hutchings, and a debut single for LEITER, ‘Draw Something Beautiful’, arrived soon after in July. “I feel like I barely made it out this past touring cycle,” she says. “Some days are good, and some days are bad. But the actual singing is always good. I realised, with every bone in my body, that unless you absolutely, absolutely want to be a musician, there's just no sense doing this professionally. And still... I wake up every day and I am certain that I want to keep singing.” 

Nilam takes its title from “nil”, the Tamil word for ‘land’, a decision made instinctively, and not just because firm ground was what she was seeking during a difficult period of touring. “The word ‘nil’ can be a command either to move or to stay still,” GANAVYA points out. “To the person being senselessly quiet, it is a command to stand up for what is right. To the person being senselessly loud, it is a command to stand still. To me, it is balance, the heart of the true rhythm of life, of change, of land, of landing.” All the same, the word perfectly describes these songs she’s played, on and off, across the years with Ridley and Overton. “The world changes and shifts and everything becomes dizzying as the earth keeps disappearing from under you,” she concludes, “but these songs have always been a place for me to stand, a place for us to be in a way that I don't really know how to describe. Music has always been the one true land...”