As the newest band to join the Elephant 6 Recording Co.’s roster, The Rishis echo the influential Athens-based music collective and label’s signature sound on the new album August Moon. Anchored by songwriters Ranjan Avasthi and Sofie Lute, the band has assembled a rotating cast of E6 luminaries to create a sound collage that is both imaginative and organic. While dipping a toe into the sunshine-drenched neo-psychedelia the collective is often recognized for, August Moon is a lush and thoughtful folk-pop record that’s instantly soothing.
Avasthi first moved to Athens in 1995 and soon joined UGA’s dance company CORE, through which he met Laura Glenn of performance art group Dixie Blood Mustache. Glenn brought Avasthi to Elephant 6 potlucks—now-storied weekly gatherings where laid back socialization would often lead into fervent collaboration—and he began forming friendships with the collective’s members.
Avasthi and Lute, who is originally from the Pacific Northwest, met 20 years later while both living in Atlanta. For the first several years together, the duo would primarily play shows in Atlanta, Seattle, Portland and Tacoma. After finding flexible careers with branches in both Atlanta and Athens, they now split their time between the two cities, but consider Athens home.
A few years ago, after Avasthi began working in Athens again, The Rishis landed a regular gig playing dinner sets at Big City Bread. They soon reached out to add John Kiran Fernandes (Olivia Tremor Control), a longtime friend whom Avasthi had met in the ‘90s while living in the old green house across from Taco Stand on Milledge Avenue with Lucy Calhoun, also of Dixie Blood Mustache. Flash forward to the present, and August Moon, which features one of Calhoun’s vibrant paintings as the cover art, has been released via Fernandes’ label, Cloud Recordings.
“The Elephant 6 family are our friends and folks we look up to,” says Lute.
“They were always so prolific in making art, music, dance, videos, you name it. Ranjan used to tell me how Elephant 6 folks used to play on each other’s records, so he wanted to try to recreate that magic.”
Though the duo has been playing music together for nearly a decade, August Moon is The Rishis’ first full-length release. When it finally became time to flesh out Avasthi’s songs, it felt only right to bring everything full circle by incorporating some of the characters he had felt so inspired by before. In addition to Calhoun and Fernandes, the album features a star-studded cast of E6ers and extended family: Peter Alvanos (Sunshine Fix), Timi Conley (Wonderland Rangers), Charlie Estes (Dark Meat), Andy Gonzalez (Marshmallow Coast), James Huggins III (of Montreal), Todd Kelly (Great Lakes), Andrew Rieger (Elf Power) and Scott Spillane (Neutral Milk Hotel).
August Moon is not an homage to Elephant 6, but more of a natural representation of the collective’s reach and friendships that have evolved across decades. Pastoral tracks such as “Holiday” and “Jetstream” feel deeply grounded in the natural world, perfect for cloud-spotting or daydreaming. Lyrically, “Oh So Young,” “Wake Up” and “Just Between You & Me” juxtapose the innocence of youth with the complexity of aging. Others, such as “Holi,” “Migrations” and the instrumental closing track “Uttar Pradesh” reference Avasthi’s ancestral roots. On the other side of the folk spectrum, “Make Me Love You” is a classic country heartbreaker of a tune where Lute’s soaring voice really shines.
”Nature herself holds so many questions and even answers about life cycles and relationships and harmony, so many of the songs have these themes, as we were reading a lot of Walt Whitman, learning about tantra, drinking strong tea and exploring nature,” says Lute. “Sunlight, youth and chasing magic are in there, too. Ranjan works in the realms of science so there is a good dose of that as well.”
Currently, the band is already working towards creating a second album to follow August Moon. Returning to record with audio engineer Chris Byron (Wonderland Rangers), Lute says some of the new songs take on strong social themes while others are more electric guitar driven. As with the first album, the sophomore release invites contributions from artists in the circle’s vast orbit, such as UGA student Max Schneider (son of Apples in Stereo’s Robert Schneider and The High Water Marks’ Hilarie Bratset) on fretless bass, Primordial Void label owner and electronic composer Marcel Sletten on organ, and Wet Meadows’ Craig Landry on percussion and glockenspiel.
“We really try to take the listener on a trip, so that way if you have time and are in the right headspace you can tune in, drop the needle and allow the vinyl grooves to take you away,” says Lute. “We are hoping our friends’ schedules might work out, where we can again collaborate to sew a sound quilt of patterns, colors and stories for folks to listen to when we have moved on in the cosmos.”
WHO: The Rishis’ Vinyl Release Show with Wet Meadows, Oceanic Sound Research and Turtle Grenade
WHEN: Thursday, July 27, 8 p.m. (doors)
WHERE: Flicker Theatre & Bar
HOW MUCH: $10
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