After taking time to explore new collaborations and sounds (MIEN, Acid House Ragas) and remixes for paisley underground legends (The Dream Syndicate) and French pop-auteurs Tahiti80, Montreal’s Elephant Stone are back today with new single, “Land Of Dead,” the first offering from the group’s forthcoming album, set for release sometime in 2020. The track will be available to stream via your preferred platform tomorrow Friday, September 20.
“Land Of Dead” began with stoner-rock riff on the sitar; it was pretty quick to write. Lyrically, I knew it would be the dark centerpiece of a song suite. Working with my friend, and MIEN bandmate, John Mark Lapham, we came up with the lyrics telling of a world devoid of empathy and burning skies. It’s tragic how life imitates art.
– Rishi Dhir
Debuting a decade ago, the Polaris Music Prize-nominated psych-pop creation of Rishi Dhir (vox, bass, sitar) and long-time collaborators Miles Dupire (drums) and Gab Lambert (guitar) have released five critically-acclaimed albums and toured extensively throughout North America and Europe. As a highly-regarded sitar player, Dhir has also collaborated with indie-rock icons (Beck) and legendary cult bands (The Brian Jonestown Massacre).
Clocking in at just under two minutes, “Land Of Dead” begins with the haunting strums of a sitar and then dives headfirst into Paranoid-era Black Sabbath riffage with Dhir intoning of a “land of fire.” Ending with a child’s lament of “goodbye blue skies, so long, clean air…do you even care?”, “Land Of Dead” is the foreboding soundtrack to a world undone by our own doing. The world is on fire. The time to make a change is now before it’s too late.
This is the first Elephant Stone release that has been fully recorded and produced in Dhir’s Sacred Sounds recording studio. Having the opportunity to create without being under time restrictions completely changed the band’s approach to making music, allowing them to explore new sounds and take more chances as evident in “Land Of Dead.”
With a new sense of confidence in their production, there is truly nothing that can stop Elephant Stone from making music and giving it to the world.
See below for a full list of Elephant Stone’s fall tour dates.
Tickets are available for purchase here.
11/5 San Diego, CA @ The Casbah
11/6 Phoenix, AZ @ Yucca Tap Room
11/8 Austin, TX @ Barracuda/Levitation
11/9 Dallas, TX @ The Foundry (Free Show)
11/11 Santa Fe, NM @ Rufina Tap Room (Free Show)
11/12 Denver, CO @ Hi-Dive
11/13 Fort Collins, CO @ Surfside 7
11/15 Portland, OR @ Doug Fir
11/16 Seattle, WA @ Freakout Festival
11/17 Vancouver, BC @ Wise Hall
11/19 San Francisco, CA @ The Chapel
11/20 Los Angeles, CA @ Lodge Room
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