Montreal psych vets Elephant Stone will release their 10th album, ASHA, on August 28 via Elephants on Parade. The album was produced and mixed by frontman Rishi Dir and “Spirit, Take Me Away” features Stars’ Amy Millan. The album is titled for Dir’s mother who passed away earlier this year. “The album is about grief, hope, and finding light in a pretty dark moment,” he says.
The new single from the album is “I Got a Pill,” which is a bouncy number that Rishi says is “about demagogues, the populist playbook. Leaders who feed on people’s fear and offer an easy fix. The pill. Take it and your problems go away. Except it doesn’t work like that. It’s control dressed up as relief.”
The vivid, puppet-filled “I Got a Pill” video was directed by Adam Traynor who says, “The lyrics to ‘I Got A Pill’ woo and warn all at once. I wanted to put the sweetness of that voice into the mouth of a Tony the Tiger-type mascot with a special breakfast gift for kids that would be sure to kick off a trip into a sugary Wonderland, a cardboard Oz, an awe-inducing game-world of artificial colours, a Dark Crystal quest for power, a Soylent Green feeding frenzy.” Watch that, and listen to two other songs from the album, below.
Elephant Stone will be on tour in September, including an NYC show at Mercury Lounge on 9/18. All dates are listed below.
ASHA Tracklist:
1. Here Comes The Rising Sun
2. Everything Evil
3. Fascists Killed Yer Rock ‘N’ Roll
4. I Got A Pill
5. Broken Arrow
6. A Beautiful Fate
7. Parallel And Contrary Motion
8. Sleepwalking In Prague
9. Spirit, Take Me Away (feat. Amy Millan)
Tour Dates:
Sept 15 Burlington, VT @ Foam Brewers
Sept 16 Rochester, NY @ Bug Jar
Sept 17 Troy, NY @ No Fun
Sept 18 New York, NY @ Mercury Lounge
Sept 19 Washington, DC @ Comet Ping Pong
Sept 20 State College, PA @ Manny’s
Sept 22 Chicago, IL @ Sleeping Village
Sept 23 Detroit, MI @ Outer Limits
Sept 24 Toronto, ON @ Second Summer Festival
Oct 1 Montreal, QC @ Bar le Ritz
Nov 2 Amsterdam, NL @ Paradiso
Nov 4 Paris, FR @ Le Chinois
Nov 16 London, UK @ MOTH Club