Great Music In 2013: The Elephant Stone
Today marks the official release of the second full-length album from Montreal psychedelic pop group The Elephant Stone. Yes, they’re probably named after the Stone Roses track. Or maybe they’re named after a carving of the Hindu God Ganesh. Or something. At any rate, I’ll have a full review up tomorrow, but for today we have some stuff to illustrate why you should care about this.
The Elephant Stone are the brainchild of former High Dials bassist/sitarist Rishi Dhir. If you read this blog regularly, you surely don’t need me to remind you of our love affair with the Dials. We’re also huge fans of Rishi’s newer group, and figured we’d give you some video evidence of why that is.
First, here’s a “fan-made, official” video from a track off the album that was done this past summer. The band invited folks to film them playing the song “Love The Sinner, Hate The Sin” and then submit the footage so it could be cut into an actual video. Here’s the result:
As mentioned, Rishi plays bass a lot…but also plays sitar, as befits his family heritage. Here’s one of my favorite High Dials songs with him playing a sitar lead. Imagine a sixties mod pop thing with a George Harrison feel…and also fat Memphis-sounding horns poured over the top:
And here’s Rishi last year joining Beck onstage and absolutely tearing it up on sitar to a song everyone knows the words to:
For the time being, the new Elephant Stone is being streamed here:
http://www.brooklynvegan.com/archives/2013/01/stream_elephant.html
It’s an outstanding record start to finish. In fact, as lovely as I’m finding the noise of M B V, the closing track on this Elephant Stone lp, “The Sacred Sound” is even prettier.
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Popnarcotic 
stumania said,
February 5, 2013 at 9:35 pm
Rishi is simply amazing – a great person as well as a stellar musician. Aside from Christian Bland, I think he was the busiest man at the Austin Psych Fest last year, hopping from stage to stage as he supported anyone in need of that wonderful Indian music influence. I came to Indian music, especially the sitar, by way of George Harrison, so having a musician like Rishi, who also combines the best of East and West, in a way that is both accessible and richly enjoyable is a rare treat indeed.
Chris said,
February 5, 2013 at 10:11 pm
I’ve only ever met him briefly, and then it was about 30 seconds about six years ago…but what you say is consistent with everything I’ve heard about the guy. In every interview I’ve seen with him, he just seems like this very smart, sweet, grounded guy who happens to be extraordinarily talented too.