The Rishis

It’s few and far between these days that a true slice of the Elephant 6 slips out. Aside from the much-appreciated posthumous Olivia Tremor Control tracks, the best peek behind the Athens curtain has been from Giant Day and The Rishis. The latter let out their long simmering debut in 2022 and, thankfully, haven’t made the world wait quite so long for a return trip to their verdant psych-pop pastures. The band rounds back this year with an eponymous journey through the rain-streaked sighs that inhabit their own slice of the sublime. Like many in the label’s midst, the band excels at building detailed pop dioramas, though they take on a more melancholy air than some siblings in the collective. Anchored by the duo of Sofie Lute and Ranjan Avasthi, the band explores stories of loss on The Rishis, wading through histories of the voiceless, the displaced, and the diminished.

Amid a tangle of strings, brass, and strums, the band captures the exploratory spirit of the E6, dappling their pop with touches of country and folk. This time around Avasthi and Lute expand the band to an appropriately lively rabble, bringing in members of Neutral Milk Hotel, the Apples in Stereo, the Olivia Tremor Control, Elf Power, and the Primordial Void collective. A couple of other familiar names crop up as well, with contributions from Mac McCaughan and Robert Schneider rounding out the ranks. The assembled armada wafts between elegiac pop, swirling psychedelics and the crunch of power pop, but makes it all seem like sections of the same dream. The Collective may have shrunk a bit in more recent years, but the quality coming from its ranks has never dimmed.

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