For a band that thrived in the private confines of the studio, stepping onto the stage was a leap into the unknown. Ryan Lum had built Love Spirals Downwards as a studio-dependent project, created intricate, multi-layered tracks of his guitars and Suzanne Perry’s vocals that seemed impossible to replicate live. Add to that their demanding academic schedules and the idea of touring felt like an impractical fantasy.
This reluctance was also tied to the band’s aesthetic. In the studio, they could use technology as a shield—a way to prioritize mood over the raw exposure of a live performance.
The Two Sides of the Shield: Aesthetic vs. Process
For Suzanne Perry, the studio’s heavy processing offered a sense of security that the stage lacked. Reflecting on the studio-only years in a 1996 interview with Requiem, she admitted:
“For a long time I felt that we hid behind all the effects. We get that a lot too!”
To her, the layers of chorus, delay, and reverb created a veil — a way to soften vulnerability and dissolve the edges of performance into atmosphere.
For Ryan Lum, however, those same effects were never camouflage. They were the method.
Asked about his settings in the same interview, Lum revealed a remarkably fluid approach:
“I don’t even save the setting it’s on… I just start plugging different ones in to make different sounds… I don’t even intend to write a song. I just mess around with new effects trying to make some sounds, and the sound of all of it will inspire me.”
The “LSD sound” was not premeditated or rehearsed. It was discovered inside circuitry.
At the center of that process was a consistent but constantly recombined signal chain:
- Gibson Les Paul and Ovation 6-string guitars provided the tonal base — electric haze and acoustic clarity.
- The Boss DC-2 Digital Dimension, and later the rack-mounted Roland Dimension D, generated the wide, liquid stereo field that defined Ardor.
- The EBow transformed guitar notes into sustained, bowed tones, allowing melodies to bloom without traditional strumming.
- The Lexicon JamMan enabled real-time looping, letting Lum stack fragments into recursive, almost shoegaze-like layers.
- Delays and reverbs — including the Roland DEP-3 and Boss DD-3 — blurred the attack of each note until the original performance dissolved into atmosphere.
- Rhythm arrived last, via the Alesis HR-16 drum machine, programmed only after the textures were complete so that pulse would reinforce mood rather than dictate it.
The songs were not arranged for performance. They were assembled in layers — spontaneous, ephemeral, and rarely repeatable in the same way twice.
To take this music onstage would mean dismantling the very system that created it.
The Resistance: School, Skills, and the “Rock and Roll Myth”
Despite the growing success of LSD, Ryan Lum remained resistant to the assumption that a band must take the stage. In a 1995 interview with Danse Macabre, he was blunt about their identity:
“Right now we’re just a recording band. I think it works better that way because I don’t have a bunch of other musicians to work with.”
At the time of the Ardor sessions, the “band” barely existed in the same zip code. While Suzanne was in San Francisco completing her Master’s thesis, Ryan was in Santa Barbara pursuing a graduate degree in Philosophy — returning on weekends to his family home in the Los Angeles area to write and record the instrumental foundations of the album in his home studio. Eventually Ryan moved the entire studio setup to San Francisco to capture Suzanne’s vocals and finalize the record.
This fragmented process made the prospect of a live “operating system” feel like a fantasy:
“If we played live we’d have to get a whole new concept of ‘working together.’ We’d have to practice and rehearse things. None of that ever happens, we never practice. I just create things and we record them on the spot.”
The technical composition of the music further complicated the leap. The recordings didn’t just capture performances; they manipulated them. The upcoming album featured vocals that were processed and run backwards, while other tracks were purely instrumental or relied on submerged textures— “la di la da das”—that functioned as atmospheric instruments rather than traditional songs.
Furthermore, the “duo” was supplemented by an outside voice. Jennifer Ryan Fuller, a local in the San Francisco area, had contributed vocals and lyrics to two key tracks: a duet with Suzanne called “Depression Glass” and a psychedelic ambient piece featuring both her and Ryan’s vocals called “Sunset Bell.” The repertoire simply wasn’t designed for a linear, two-person acoustic performance.
As Suzanne admitted, the prospect of standing on a stage and delivering these songs from start to finish was daunting:
“It’s very spontaneous, even my vocals… I don’t know if I’ve ever sat down and sang any of our songs from beginning to end, and that’s sort of frightening.”
Her fear wasn’t stage fright alone — it was the prospect of linear performance. The recordings dissolved time through overdubs and processing; the stage would demand continuity.
At the same time, the possibility lingered. Suzanne confessed she would “love to perform live,” but only if the effort justified itself. The duo even had a loose network of potential collaborators — bassists, backup vocalists –including her sister, Kristen, who she’d displaced as the band’s vocalist, even a drummer — scattered between Los Angeles and Northern California. But with Lum pursuing a Ph.D. in Santa Barbara and Perry completing her Master’s thesis in San Francisco, the logistics made the idea feel remote.
The result was a paradox: a band with a growing audience, multiple releases, and increasing press attention — but no rehearsal culture, no fixed lineup, and no clear path from studio alchemy to stage reality.
Demand Becomes Momentum: Projekt’s Mail-Order Machine
While Love Spirals Downwards wrestled with the internal question of whether they could perform live, an external reality was taking shape. Through Projekt’s mail-order operation, a geographically scattered but deeply committed audience was coalescing.
Before the digital age, Projekt bypassed traditional gatekeepers through direct-to-fan catalogs. As label founder Sam Rosenthal recalled in a 2023 interview with The Big Takeover:
“I did 1-inch ads in the back of Spin that got 1000+ letters in the mail each time… We were doing a lot of mail-order so we had a nice direct connection to the listeners.”
Each small advertisement generated a literal stack of handwritten requests. By the time Ardor was released in 1994, the Projekt: Darkwave catalog had evolved into a sophisticated distribution network — one that didn’t just sell records but cultivated community. When the label launched its website in 1995, that network expanded further.
The demand was no longer abstract. It was measurable. And it was vocal.
Into this growing infrastructure stepped Pat Ogle, Projekt’s Promotional Director. If Sam Rosenthal built the direct-to-fan pipeline, Ogle translated it into visibility — coordinating press, promoters, and tour possibilities.
But inside the band, the question of performing live was anything but settled.
In a 1995 interview with Andrew Chadwick for Ink Spots, the tension played out in real time. When asked about a potential tour, Ryan cautiously replied:
“That’s being discussed right now. That’s not certain or finalized yet.”
Suzanne immediately undercut him:
“Well, that’s what Pat is telling everyone.”
Chadwick noted that a letter had already gone out to promoters suggesting a possible tour. Suzanne then admitted what had happened:
“The thing is, I wanna do it, but Ryan’s kinda dragging his feet on it, so I figured if I told Pat we would do it, and then he sent out a letter, then we’d do it.”
Ryan laughed:
“Oh, is that how it happened?”
The exchange was playful, but decisive. Suzanne had forced momentum where hesitation lingered.
Even then, doubt hovered. She worried aloud, “It could be boring.” Ryan imagined beer cans and yawns. They emphasized that they were “not much of a live band,” that their songs “just kind of emerge” in the studio, that they never rehearsed.
And yet, in the middle of the uncertainty, a solution surfaced almost casually:
“Yeah, we could do it. It’d just be the two of us. It’d be acoustic, with her singing and me playing acoustic guitar.”
The stripped-down configuration wasn’t an aesthetic statement — it was a practical compromise.
Suzanne’s hesitation ran deeper than stage fright. She confessed that performing live wasn’t even central to how she understood herself:
“I don’t even think about it like that. It’s not part of my identity. I don’t go around saying, ‘I’m in a band.’ That’s usually the last thing I mention.”
The band existed in private — in studios, in mail-order catalogs, in letters from fans — but not yet in rooms filled with bodies.
Pat Ogle’s letter changed that. What had been theoretical was now scheduled. Promoters expected dates. The infrastructure demanded presence.
There was no turning back.
Finding Their Footing: The Acoustic Solution
Faced with the technical puzzle of replicating Ryan’s multi-layered studio alchemy without a full band, the duo opted for a radical, if daunting, departure: stripped-down acoustic sets. By removing the shield of effects, they placed the emotional weight entirely on Lum’s guitar and Perry’s voice. Reflecting on this vulnerability, Lum told Black Moon in 1996:
“It’s just me on acoustic guitar and Suzanne singing. We try to play all the songs very emotionally. When we record it’s very different. We do all kinds of crazy things… lay down different instruments, harmonies, and weird guitar sounds. Live is very simple and very powerful. Some things are impossible to do live.”
However, the simple approach didn’t mean the shows were without their complications. Their second-ever performance at The Crocodile in Seattle on June 9, 1995, was a triple-billing that united the West Coast ethereal scene. Love Spirals Downwards shared the stage with Seattle locals Faith & Disease (of Ivy Records) and Santa Barbara band Trance to the Sun (of Tess Records).
During the set, the duo attempted a rare experiment in live instrumentation. Suzanne announced to the crowd that they would be joined for two songs by Rick Allen (the drummer for Faith & Disease) and Tim Soba (of Diamond Fist Werny, who frequently performed with Faith & Disease). The guest percussionists added live layers to the arrangements, but the moment captured the raw, unpolished reality of their early stage life.
Before the music began, the familiar bustle of the stage was audible as one of the guests asked Suzanne if she “needs an egg,” referring to the shaker she sometimes played, and she sassily replied, “I need a valium!” As “Will You Fade” ended, a clearly thrown Suzanne exclaimed to the band, “Hey, what was that?” She then offered a candid moment of vulnerability to the crowd:
“You guys are too kind. I’m hitting some strange notes and everything! I’m much too nervous.”
This nerve-wracking experience at The Crocodile served as a vital proving ground. It was here that Ryan and Suzanne learned in real-time what it felt like to stand before a crowd. The brief experiment with guest percussionists had been an attempt to bridge the gap between their layered records and the stage, but the duo quickly realized that their true strength lay in a more intimate configuration.
Armed with the lessons of that Seattle night—and the realization that they could command a room with just a voice and an Ovation guitar—the band prepared to head East.
The East Coast Acoustic Tour: Proving the Concept
In late August 1995, the band embarked on their first real tour, hitting a trio of legendary venues in just four days. This was the true test of their Unplugged style strategy, taking them far from the private confines of California into the heart of the East Coast underground.
To bolster the Projekt sound on the road, the tour featured opening support from fellow labelmates Arcanta. For the Philadelphia and New York dates, they were also joined by the New Jersey-based act Fade, creating a cohesive bill of ethereal and atmospheric music. According to internal Projekt records, the tour proved that the label’s direct-to-fan infrastructure was functioning at a high level:
- 8/31/1995 – TT the Bear’s Place, Boston, MA: Well over 200 people paid, a significant turnout for a band making their East Coast debut.
- 9/1/1995 – Asylum, Philadelphia, PA: 107 paid, maintaining the momentum in a smaller, focused market.
- 9/2/1995 – The Batcave @ Downtime, New York, NY: While no official count was recorded, the venue was noted simply as “packed.”
These numbers confirmed that the Projekt: Darkwave mail-order culture had created a deep-seated, geographically diverse demand. In the humid, crowded rooms of the East Coast, Ryan and Suzanne found that the emotional core of Ardor resonated just as powerfully when stripped of its studio shimmer. By the time they reached The Batcave, the word was out: Love Spirals Downwards was a live act that commanded silence and respect through simple and powerful delivery.
The Hero’s Return: Dark’s Art Parlour and The Troubadour
The momentum from the East Coast run carried the duo back to Southern California, where they were no longer a studio secret but a proven live draw. To promote their upcoming dates, Ryan and Suzanne appeared on the KSPC radio show Generation Death. The broadcast was a chaotic, joint interview hosted by DJ Wednesday, featuring not only Love Spirals Downwards but also Ashkelon Sain and Zoe Wakefield of Trance to the Sun. This shared airtime highlighted the tight-knit nature of the West Coast ethereal scene as they prepared for a string of local performances.
The first of these dates took place in Orange County on September 16, 1995, at Dark’s Art Parlour in Santa Ana. The show was a joint presentation between the venue and Projekt, marketed with evocative copy that described the music as being “like standing under a waterfall, guitar trickles swirls like a mist around you as warm cascading female harmonies envelop you.” With tickets priced at $6, the event reached its capacity of 100+ people, with the band selling copies of both Idylls and Ardor to the local crowd.
This intimate success set the stage for their return to The Troubadour in West Hollywood on September 21, 1995. Performing for 200 paid attendees alongside Faith & Disease and Trance to the Sun, the duo’s growth was unmistakable. The nervousness of the Seattle shakedown was replaced by what John Koenig of Muse Magazine described as a serious yet “humorously casual” stage presence. As H. Aaron Ripes of UnderScope Magazine noted:
“LSD took to the stage with only one instrument: Ryan Lum’s six-stringed acoustic guitar… Trust me, no backing tape was needed… LSD’s songs burned with a raw, ethereal brilliance.”
The duo closed out their breakout year on December 16, 1995, with a high-profile appearance at a specially branded “Projekt Night at The Troubadour.” Billed as part of the Human Drama “Songs of Betrayal” Tour ’95, Love Spirals Downwards served as the opening act. This was a significant “family” affair, as Human Drama had recently released their sprawling double-album Songs of Betrayal on Projekt Records, marking a major expansion for the label into the broader gothic-rock world.
Moving from a band that “never practiced” to one sharing the stage with a cornerstone of the Los Angeles scene like Human Drama was a major milestone. The 1995 journey had successfully transformed Love Spirals Downwards into a formidable live entity — and the most extraordinary chapter was still ahead.
The International Leap: Mexico City 1996
While the 1995 tour served to get their feet wet, the leap to Mexico City was a whirlwind of professional promotion and unprecedented scale. The performance at the Museo Universitario del Chopo fell on February 29, 1996 — a Leap Day, a date that arrives only once every four years, as rare on the calendar as the occasion itself. Billed as the “Primer concierto gótico-etéreo” (first gothic-ethereal concert), the show marked a significant milestone for the band’s global reach.
The three days leading up to the concert were a grueling marathon of public appearances. The local organizers—Carlos Becerra and Arturo Saucedo—orchestrated a promotional machine unlike anything the band had seen in the U.S..
Reflecting on the intensity of the trip, the duo told Black Moon:
Ryan Lum: “The three days before the show when we were there, we did so much stuff. We did so many interviews for the press, television, etc. We had a press conference at the venue. We were on their national morning talk show.”
Suzanne Perry: “They were nice. They promote your show until you collapse.”
In interviews with major Mexican dailies like El Financiero and Unomásuno, the duo defined their artistic philosophy for a new, eager audience.
Suzanne Perry: “People can find some meaning in our name, but we don’t impose any. It is pure aestheticism. We are interested in beauty for its own sake.”
Ryan Lum: “We don’t intellectualize things… It is very simple to explain: our music is made with the purpose of sounding good.”
The press was equally fascinated by the band’s DIY roots and their stance on their famous acronym. Jose Fernandez Ramos noted in his article for The News:
“Perry hastened to add that LSD does not advocate taking drugs, such as LSD. ‘We chose it because it’s a catchy hook,’ she said.”
The night was a curated experience of the era’s ethereal subculture. Support was provided by local Mexican duo La Divina Comedia, and the atmosphere was further enhanced by DJ Ambiental, who provided an exclusive projection of Hyperium Records music videos. A review by Pablo Espinosa in La Jornada captured the atmosphere of the stripped-down set:
“Love Spirals Downwards appears with nothing more than the throat of her and the guitar of him: naked music. In Los Angeles, the sequencers and synthesizers stayed behind… the voice of Perry is half of what sounds: the voice of Perry alone.”
In the band’s very first official weblog post on May 2, 1996, Ryan Lum reflected on the trip as more than just a professional milestone. Beyond the media blitz, the duo spent a “wonderful week” immersing themselves in the culture:
“We spent a wonderful week in Mexico making many new friends and seeing some truly fantastic sights such as the pyramids at Teotihuacan (we climbed to the top of the Pyramid of the Sun), as well as eating some of the best food in our lives.”
For a duo that had only started gigging a year prior, the success in Mexico City provided a massive confidence boost, though the nerves remained a constant companion. The duo looked back on the experience in Black Moon:
Suzanne Perry: “We had 1,200 people at that show… It’s more natural now. It’s still hard, in some ways harder. When you play live and you screw up it is an experience.”
Ryan Lum: “I don’t know if it got easier to do. Even Jerry Garcia, up to the end, used to get nervous before shows.”
Perry, however, noticed a change:
“It’s more natural now. It’s still hard, in some ways harder. When you play live and you screw up, it is an experience.”
The Mexico City concert remains a legendary moment in the band’s history, proving that their “simple and powerful” live approach could command a room of over a thousand fans. This experience would prove helpful for one of their most memorable performances — headlining the opening night of the inaugural Projekt Festival in Chicago.
A Landmark Moment: Projekt Festival 1996
The 1996 Projekt Festival in Chicago represented the pinnacle of the label’s mid-90s expansion, transforming the “mail-order” community into a physical reality. As Sam Rosenthal shifted operations from California to Chicago, the festival became a two-day homecoming that celebrated the label’s most successful era.
A Milestone for Love Spirals Downwards
On June 25 and 26, 1996, the inaugural festival, titled “From Across this Gray Land,” took over The Vic Theatre. For Love Spirals Downwards, this was a moment of commercial and artistic validation, as they were recognized as the label’s top-selling act.
The festival was not simply another show; it was the first time the Projekt world assembled itself in one room. Love Spirals Downwards headlined the opening night, sharing a powerhouse bill with fellow label artists Steve Roach, Lycia, Thanatos, and Soul Whirling Somewhere. The second night featured Attrition, Eden, Arcanta, and the live debut of Black Tape for a Blue Girl, along with a second set by Steve Roach.
The Chicago Tribune noted that while the scene was “lush, dense, and often gloomy,” the numbers were anything but quiet in their “After Hours” coverage of the event:
- Commercial Success: Love Spirals Downwards was cited as Projekt’s best-selling band, moving approximately 10,000 CDs per release.
- Global Draw: The festival’s reach was international, with Rosenthal noting that fans were traveling from as far as Hong Kong and England to attend.
- Massive Attendance: The two-day event at The Vic saw approximately 1,000 people in attendance.
Critics immediately recognized the quiet power of the duo’s stripped-down set. For a band so closely associated with studio-layered atmosphere, the response confirmed that their emotional core—voice, melody, and restraint—translated fully to the stage. Morbid Outlook’s Jon DeRosa wrote:
“Their sound seemed surprisingly warm and huge, despite the absence of synthesizers. Ryan strummed and picked away as Suzanne cascaded through song after song until the evening was over.”
While the festival was a triumph for the audience, the logistical weight of the event was immense. In a 2018 interview with Sanctuary, Sam Rosenthal reflected on the team effort required to pull it off:
“The fests in 1996 and 1997 were amazing, with over 1000 attendees. It was really successful, and fun to have so many of the label’s bands in one place so I could meet & listen to everyone. The fests were also incredibly stressful, logistically and monetarily. Patrick [Ogle] and Lisa [Feuer] and Charles did a lot of work to make those a success. They deserve a lot of the credit.”
The festival era coincided with the absolute height of Projekt’s influence. By 1996, the label had grown to employ eight people near Chicago’s Chinatown and handled U.S. mail-order distribution for major European labels like Hyperium, Cold Meat Industry, and Tess. This momentum allowed the “whispering” sounds of ethereal and darkwave music to command a 1,000-seat theater in one of America’s loudest music cities.
Additional 1996 Performances
Following their Projekt Festival performance, Love Spirals Downwards continued to make select live appearances. On August 9, 1996, they played Dark’s Art Parlour in North Hollywood with Sean Bowley of Eden, and later that month they performed at Big Heart City in San Francisco with Trance to the Sun.
The band also made a November appearance on Irvine’s KUCI 88.9 show, Ned’s Atomic Dustbin, performing live in studio followed by an interview with host, Ned Raggett. This was the first of several appearances Lum would make at the college radio station, with and without Perry, over the following years.
One of their most notable performances from this period was their Echoes Living Room Concert, recorded on November 14, 1996, and broadcast internationally on December 13, 1996. The session was part of the long-running Echoes radio program, which specialized in ambient, ethereal, and dreamlike music. The Echoes Living Room Concert provided a uniquely intimate showcase of the duo performing in their own home studio.
Reflections on the Live Experience
Initially, the idea of performing live seemed daunting. In an Ink Spots (April 1995) interview, Perry worried, “I’m thinking we might be boring…” while Lum joked, “Maybe if we do it, I’ll be really surprised that people won’t be yawning or throwing beer cans at us or something.”
Yet, as the performances unfolded, those fears faded. Audiences responded with enthusiasm, captivated by the intimacy of their arrangements. In their November 1995 band newsletter, Lum reflected:
“Much to our surprise, we had a great time doing these shows. It was especially nice to meet some of you who write us! We hope to do more next year.”
Despite their initial reluctance, Love Spirals Downwards discovered something special in their live performances—not just in the music itself, but in the connections forged with listeners. Their rare concerts became immersive experiences, proving that their music wasn’t confined to studio layers but thrived in shared moments of sound and emotion. As UnderScope Magazine aptly put it:
“Anyone who narrow-mindedly accuses them of being simply studio musicians needs to be taken out back and whupped good.”