Grails
with SOMA
Grails is a band most easily described as “restless”. They’ve stubbornly pushed against the staid cliches of instrumental music and towards new sonic frontiers, creating heavily textured albums, stacked deep with epic song hooks and exotic instrumentation.
Released in late 2023, Anches En Maat is the first new album from Grails in over a half-decade – following the masterful Chalice Hymnal in 2017 – and their first album recorded with all members in the studio together since Doomsdayer’s Holiday in 2008.
The core group of founding members Alex Hall and Emil Amos (Om, Holy Sons) joined Jesse Bates, Ilyas Ahmed, and AE Paterra (Zombi, Majeure) in Atlanta, GA to record Anches En Maat together – a novel event for a band who had become so accustomed to recording separately and then laboring in post-production for months or even years on end.
An improbable blend of melted 1980s softcore and daytime soap opera soundtracks, cosmic minimalism, aching Westerns, melancholy electronic pulses, and massive soul-disco strings, Anches En Maat is one of Grails’ most ambitious albums of their 20+ year career.
SOMA is a group of multi instrumentalists who play a blend of meditative soundscapes woven together with traditional Indian kirtan music and inspired folk songs. The result is a Sonic psychedelic tapestry of Esoteric mantras, Dynamic rhythms and Devotional prayers. SOMA’s live performances are as eclectic as their recordings, landing them in Temples, Churches, Concert Halls, Bars and even Cremation Grounds. Without exception each song, vibration,and drone are treated with reverence, attentiveness and respect which acknowledges SOMA’s link in an unbroken chain to the ancient sounds. In March of 2024 Soma will be releasing their 2nd full length album ‘Burning is Learning’ on Centripetal Force Records.