After 10 releases that have garnered Montreal’s Rishi Dhir and his band Elephant Stone a staunch cult following and collaborations with the likes of The Brian Jonestown Massacre and Beck, maybe after their latest album Asha, they will get more than they deserve.
After all, Dhir has been around for a while, covering almost a whole spectrum of psych rock known so far, not only with Elephant Stone but with The Datsons/The High Dials before, and has been one of the more forward purveyors of that branch of psych that looks to India and all things on the Eastern side of the globe.
And so far Dhir and Elephant Stone have not missed a beat in that respect, and obviously had no intention to miss it on their eleventh release, Asha. There is a very personal note for Dhir on this album, as it is named after his late mother, and that emotional element (Asha in Sanskrit means hope seems to have brought along a spark that produced probably the best out of Dhir and his band as far as both classic and modern psych pop can offer these days and as the nine tracks of the album evolve, you realise it is quite a lot.
It is tight-knit songwriting that skips excess meandering some psych artists can indulge in these days, sticking to the shorter song form, with the closer ‘Spirit Take Me Away’ being the exception (with a good reason for it), and using all the production capabilities modern studios can offer without any extra gloss. The Eastern/Indian connection is of course there, but at no point overstated, just giving the music that extra touch it needs.
It is an excellent take on psych pop that deserves more attention.
