
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 [...]

Grails is one of those unclassifiable bands with a huge list of influences that combine in unexpected ways to create a unique, genre-breaking sound. Their new album, Deep Politics , is part stoner metal ( Om ), part post-rock ( Sigur Ros ), part Western soundtrack ( Ennio Morricone ), and part downtempo ( Portishead ). The songs are often built around a dynamic intensity created through subtle layering; a droning, repetetive bass part leaves room for dark organ pads and slow, bluesy guitar riffs. Their Portland influences bubble to the surface with jangly acoustic guitar, but the [...]

Ash Black Buffalo is the solo project of Jay Clarke (Grails, Dolorean) where he makes really beautiful and intricate instrumental music. Check out "Misery Is The Pilgrims Pasture" from Andasol below. You can pick up the record here . Mp3: Ash Black Buffalo - Misery Is The Pilgrims Pasture
News FOZZY — the band featuring WWE wrestling superstar Chris Jericho and STUCK MOJO mastermind Rich "The Duke" Ward — will release the "Remains Alive & Chasing The Grail" two-CD set on July 1 via Edel's international rock label earMUSIC.
The Top Ten Albums of 2011 (January 1st - June 24th) 2011 is half-over. How has it been for you? Same old, same old? Yeah, I hear ya. My year so far has been, uh…interesting. Yeah, that's the word. Interesting. Transitional, maybe? Transitory? Are those synonyms? Do they mean the same thing? Eh, I guess [...]

[Grails at the Knitting Factory in 2008. Photos courtesy of davebgimp. See his Flickr stream here ] Portland's Grails have been making genre-defying, intense, experimental and satisfying instrumental music for the better part of the last decade, but with 2011's Deep Politics, their recent release on Temporary Residence Limited , they have hit the top of their game. Many of their past records have a deep psychedelic groove to them, drawing clear Eastern inspiration, but Deep Politics is an entirely different beast, focusing a bit more on pianist/bassist Bill Slater's [...]
Grails have no singer, but that doesn't stop them in communicating a wide swath of ideas and emotions using just instruments. They have successfully avoided getting penned in the so-called 'post-rock' ghetto where most vocal-less bands struggle to break free from, and bring facets of Italian and French soundtrack composers, an incredibly fluid rhythm section, and more than a passing interest in Asian folk melodies (cf. "Silk Rd"). One of the rare bands that get better as they release each record, this year's Deep Politics stands as an absolute tour de force, certainly a top 10 record of [...]
Flowers bedeck the fragility of the convict and I garlanded myself, lovingly pursuing a journey through sweat, sperm and blood that led to prison. Without what people call my evil, I am castrated. Un petit-bourgeois rien. There was a moral vigour in the acceptance of my destiny. I was hot for crime. I give the [...]
Grails, James Blackshaw and Animal Hospital @ Great Scott (Boston), Tuesday, April 26, 2011. Some may hold the view that the human voice is the most versatile of all instruments, but if you'd ply that sub-population with a front to back airing of Grails' discography, chances are good that their bedrock opinions would be shaken at least a bit off of its mooring. Without vocals, this quartet (expanded now to a burgeoning six for the live setting) paints with a 32 bit color palette, weaving in the traditional bass/guitar/drums/keyboards elements and wrapping [...]

Grails released a new record of post-rock brilliance titled Deep Politics last month via Temporary Residence. Check out the track below when you are ready to space out and fall into a trance. Mp3: Grails - I Led Three Lives
Russian symphonic black metal act Arcane Grail has issued the following brief update about posting drum cam footage online: "Hi, our loyal army! Please, look the new video of our session drummer Alex Smirnov from our concert with mighty Keep of Kalessin in Moscow here." Read More/Discuss on Metal Underground.com