Have you been keeping up with the newest releases in music? My new music release column from early September saw Elephant Stone releasing their 10th studio release, a 9-track album titled ASHA.
After finishing the article, I had to come back. There is so much to unpack about this band album that I can’t wait to share. How much psychedelic rock have you listened to? It is more of a lifestyle than a genre of music – you can’t just be a psychedelic rock band; you have to be a psychedelic rock band. Elephant stone has taken this delicate genre and put a modern-day twist on it – future psych, I heard it called – and I guarantee it is unlike anything you’ve ever heard. The album opens cold with Here Comes the Rising Sun, immediately hitting you with the psychedelic themes you expect from the genre.
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Here’s the twist; layered under the rising piano notes are classical Indian instruments such as the sitar, dilruba, and tabla. I once watched a video that played the same scale of music over and over again, it was a simple G major scale but played in countries all over the world. Here in the West, you know what your G major scale sounds like, but each region globally has its own set of culturally significant instruments that change the way their scale sounds. That is what makes this album so unique, the band is Canadian by nature but bring with them a strong musical sound unlike anything we have down here, yet it is still so Canadian.
Let’s keep going down the album, Everything Evil is the second track, and it lets its lyrics drive the music. The song is angry, heavy, and reminiscent of the early psychedelia of Black Sabbath. Fascists Killed Yer Rock and Roll is next, and I mentioned it briefly in my last story. This song stands out with its strong focus on the sitar, if you’ve never heard one in action, give this song a listen. The use of sitar amongst future psych is a beautiful combination, it evokes that feeling of familiarity because you know the genre, you know the sound, yet it follows a musical scale outside of anything you’ve ever heard before.
Keep reading to following the second half of the album as it spirals into a psychedelic dream.