Lilacs And Champagne may have started as an interesting side project of Grails members Alex Hall and Emil Amos, but they've quickly proved how well they stand on their own. Picking up on the sounds from last year's self-titled debut, their new single "Sweet/Sour" is a heady cocktail of psychedelia and soul in the style of Madlib or J Dilla. It's the sort of track that begs to be heard with headphones in order to enjoy all of the sonic tricks Hall and Amos bust out in its brief runtime. Check out the skull-filled music video below, and [...]
It's that time of the year again when music blogs worldwide take a few paragraphs to discuss their favourite albums of the year and make a comprehensive list out of it; who are we to break the trend, so without ... Continue reading

Athens, Georgia-based Maserati are habitual line-steppers, blending psychedelia, post-rock, electronic, ambient, you-name-it. Their latest album, "Maserati VII", was produced by the talented and hard-working Kevin Ratterman right here in Louisville. The album is their first record with drummer Mike Albanese (Cinemechanica, Shannon Wright ) and prominently features Steve Moore of Zombi, contributing both synth lines and mixing the record. Zombi is one of the threads that connects this show; their drummer, A. E. Paterra, formed the dynamic space-rock band, Majeure, accompanying Maserati on this bill. Majeure are touring for their second album, out last month. [...]
It's Friday, which means another installment of our regular roundup of downloadable MP3 goodness from around the web. This week there's the first of the new season of indie Christmas songs, courtesy of Sufjan Stevens, along with pleasantly heavy action from Grails and Horrid Red, a killer new track from our own Silent Drape Runners, an excellent new Lindstrøm remix, the entire remastered After Dark compilation, a lovely new piece from Ulrich Schnauss, and a whole lot more (including an exclusive mixtape from your correspondent himself). Since all this action costs precisely nothing, what are you waiting for? [...]
Portland, OR instrumental band Grails share a drummer with Om (Emil Amos, also of Holy Sons and Lilacs & Champagne), but there's a shared sensibility, too: Both bands deal in complex yet meditative explorations of sounds spanning psychedelia, ambient, doom, Eastern music, prog, and beyond. Grails' forthcoming release, the split-LP Black Tar Prophecies Volume 5 , is the latest installment of their triumphant Black Tar series - "a repository for the band's more idiosyncratic forms of composition" - however, it also builds on the panoramic beauty of the band's last LP, 20112s Deep Politics [...]
There is virtue in keeping things short and to the point. Has anyone ever heard the story of prog rock? For the Canadian duo, Indian Handcrafts, however, two minutes is not nearly enough. On "Terminal Horse," the first single from their forthcoming release on Sargent House (10/30) , they tease with such a forceful mix of heavy blues and thrash metal, that by the time you get a good headbang going, it's already over. Sure, you can press play again, but really, the answer is more. As in, more thrash, more riffs, more jams (that are more than two [...]

Lilacs & Champagne er et sideprojekt for de to medlemmer Alex Hall og Emil Amos fra Portland, USA, der normalt lægger deres kræfter i intrumental bandet Grails. Det gør det ikke mindre interessant. Er blevet ret vild med nummeret Everywhere, Everyone . Som resten af numrene på den selvbetitlede debutplade er udtrykket ret psykedelisk og filmisk og præget af et virvar af samples, der er stykket sammen på mesterlig vis. Stemningen emmer af underspillet uhygge på et psykologiske plan. Lilacs & Champagne | Homepage [...]
Another busy weekend. After Friday night's movie debacle, I worked all day Saturday and then celebrated the birthday (or name day, if you're a Game of Thrones fan!) of a friend. The revelry occurred at a bar in Koreatown that makes for a pretty great restaurant, but maybe not the optimal hang-out bar. Food was [...]

Looks like the Grails are having technical difficulties and need our help. They have started a donation page to rescue a corrupted harddrive that had 5 records worth of material on it. In return for helping them out you can get something prety sweet in return: Donate $15 - 5 unreleased live tracks. These are culled from the best live moments that we could find in the archives from the early days.. Donate $30 - Signed! Your choice of the LP's they have in stock: [Currently] Burden [...]
Feb 7, 2012, 4:00am
»78s

Alex Hall und Emil Amos, eine Hälfte der Instrumental-Kombo Grails, haben ein neues Projekt. Als Lilacs & Champagne produzieren sie ein sample-basiertes Album und bringen zusammen, was nicht zusammen gehört. " Lilacs and champagne / a sweet and bubbly trip ", singt der polnische Singer/Songwriter Czeslaw Niemen Mitte der Siebziger. Irgendwie fällt sein Song in die Hände der beiden Grails -Musiker Alex Hall und Emil Amos, die unter dem Namen Lilacs & Champagne aus gefundenen Secondhand-Sounds eine eigene EP [...]

Wandering in from a psyched-out trip through a Spaghetti Western, Madlib wasn't sure what to do. He limped around. Sample some local delicacies: a walnut in the shape of a raven and just as big, a fish which sang a lullaby, chilies cooked over a roasting heart. If it's all just in your mind, then why are you stressing, the fish sang. Madlib ate on. Lilacs & Champagne = 1/2 of Grails + Emil Amos of Om/Holy Sons and Alex Hall.

Ben Hinz is lead-singer and guitarist for Doom/Triphop outfit The Ronald Raygun . He is also the owner of Dwarfcraft Devices , an acclaimed effects pedal manufacturing business centered in Eau Claire,WI (seriously, tons of people use his stuff, check out the videos and testimonials to get an idea.) While his music might suggest he'd just as soon bludgeon you to death with a lead pipe as look you, he was kind enough to send us to jot down a few ruminations on what he considered to be the best of 2011 . . . [...]

We've already posted " Everywhere, Everyone ," the first track from Lilacs & Champagne, the spooky, apocalyptic production duo made up of Grails' Alex Hall and Emil Amos. And now here's another one from their self-titled album: "Lilacs," a piece of dazed '70s-soundtrack psychedelia. Stream it below. Read More...

Perhaps you saw it here or here or here ? Grails has a new unrock side project called Lilacs & Champagne which is set to release a self-titled LP via Mexican Summer on January 31st. Lilacs & Champagne create sound-pieces that draw from underground rap, spaghetti-western soundtracks, dub, techno, hip-hop, tape-collage and 1970′s film-soundtracks. What does it sound like? Well, why not stream a track using the soundcloud widget below. Listen. Streamable: Everywhere, Everyone (soundcloud) [...]

Watch a retro video from the Grails side-project.
Two members of the Portland band Grails, Alex Hall and Emil Amos, have a new project going: The heavy, churning production duo Lilacs & Champagne. Last month, we posted their dark, eerie debut single " Everywhere, Everyone ." And now we've got the equally dark and eerie video for the track, which mostly consists of chopped-up and staticy clips from old horror movies. Read More...

Alex Hall and Emil Amos, the production team behind the Portland instrumental rock band Grails , have a distinctly unrock new project called Lilacs & Champagne. The new project is a producer-music sort of thing; the two make sound-pieces that draw from underground rap and spaghetti-western soundtracks and dub and techno. "Everyone, Everywhere," a song from their forthcoming self-titled album, is a bass-heavy head-in-clouds epic, and it sounds vaguely like a screwed-and-chopped Clinic. Listen below. Read More...

DOWNLOAD: Grails "I Led Three Lives" L.A. RECORD PRESENTS GRAILS + TRUE WIDOW ON TUE., SEP. 6, AT BORDELLO BAR, 901 E. 1ST ST., DOWNTOWN. 9 PM / $8 / 21+.
Post-holiday weekend fun: ► Only a year after releasing the double-disc retrospective "Your Hear Me," veteran power-pop maestro Tommy Keene returned last month with a new album of crisp guitar rock, "Behind the Parade." Tonight, Keene visits the Silverlake Lounge, with Exploding Flowers and Risers opening. That's Keene's video for "Deep Six Saturday," above. ► The Ladybug Transistor headlines the Satellite behind their June release "Clutching Stems," their seventh album. Red Pony Clock and Sea Lions support. ► And the Dead Ships kick off [...]