Elephant Stone release ASHA, the psych pop band's tenth album

Elephant Stone have released ASHA, the tenth full-length album from the Montreal band, out on August 28 through Elephants On Parade.

The group is led by singer, songwriter and sitarist Rishi Dhir, and has spent its career at the meeting point of studio-built psych pop and classical Indian music traditions. That combination is unusual enough that the band have essentially had the territory to themselves across ten records.

The album was rolled out over several months with singles including "I Got a Pill", "Everything Evil" and a protest song, "Fascists Killed Yer Rock'N'Roll". Under the Radar premiered another track, "Parallel and Contrary Motion", the day before release.

Writing about that song, Caleb Campbell described it as an expansive psychedelic piece built on dreamy acoustic guitar, a rumbling bass line and Dhir's vocal melodies. It opens as a guitar and organ reverie, moves into thicker bass grooves and synth passages, and ends on a long guitar solo, changing shape rather than settling.

Campbell also notes where Dhir's vocal delivery lands, closest to Tame Impala's early work, though the track pulls in a wider set of psych reference points both old and new.

ASHA follows Back Into The Dream, the band's 2024 album, and is on the release calendar with the rest of the week's indie and rock releases.