Few independent artists can claim the kind of sustained, long-running support from a nationally syndicated radio program that Love Spirals Downwards has received from John Diliberto and Echoes, a program that has long championed the intersection of ambient, electronic, and new age music. From an intimate bedroom studio session in 1996 to a CD of the Month honor in 2026, the relationship between this Los Angeles dream pop project and America’s premier ambient radio program spans nearly thirty years — following the band from its early years with vocalist Suzanne Perry to its later iteration with Anji Bee (now Anji Lum).
In the Beginning
The earliest documented chapter dates to December 1996, when Diliberto visited Ryan Lum and Suzanne Perry at their Los Angeles home studio — cheekily described in Echoes’ own promotional copy as their “boudoir” — for an intimate living room concert. Performing music from across their three Projekt Records albums, including the newly released Ever, it was a fittingly intimate format for a band whose layered, atmospheric sound thrived on close listening. Tracks from the session have been officially released on the band’s Livecompilation, and their cover of “Candle Song” from that performance remains exclusively available on the band’s YouTube channel.
Flux and the Feature
By October 1998, with the release of Flux — a transitional album that marked a significant electronica evolution in the band’s sound and featured a broader cast of vocalists alongside Suzanne, including her sister Kristen — Echoes dedicated a full artist feature titled “Love Spirals Downwards: Music & Minds in Flux.” The show aired three times across late October and early November, giving listeners multiple chances to catch it. Diliberto’s promotional framing captured the moment well: “We gather them both in a room to sort out a group in flux.”
The Holiday Tradition
Perhaps the most enduring thread in this relationship is the annual holiday airplay of “Welcome Christmas” — Love Spirals Downwards’ hauntingly delicate take on the How the Grinch Stole Christmas carol, originally recorded for Projekt’s 1995 compilation Excelsis. By 1999, Echoes was selling Excelsis through their online store, reviewing it as “an album that gets into the mood of Christmas in the deepest way” and singling out the LSD track specifically. Diliberto has since played “Welcome Christmas” every holiday season across a remarkable range of themed programs — “An Echoes Christmas,” “Sonic Seasonings,” “Christmas and Hanukkah,” “An Echoes Night Before Christmas,” and multiple “Echoes Winter Solstice” mixes — calling it, simply, “the perennial favorite.”
A second holiday gem entered the rotation in 2001, when Lovespirals recorded “Aspen Glow” — a cover of John Denver’s classic — for Excelsis Vol. 3 ~ A Prelude. It too became a near-annual fixture, particularly on the Winter Solstice Soundscape programs, and remains available as a free download from the Lovespirals Bandcamp page.
Into the Lovespirals Era
The support continued seamlessly as the project evolved. The 2012 Projekt holiday compilation Ornamental earned a glowing Echoes Program Highlight review, with Diliberto praising Anji Bee’s vocal performance on “Happy Holidays” as delivered “with sophisticated élan, like she’s casting knowing glances over her shoulder against Ryan Lum’s chiming guitars.” Then in 2019–2020, three tracks from the album Life Goes On — “Dark Night of the Soul,” “Brother Against Brother,” and “Foolish Heart” — received substantial combined airplay across more than a dozen Echoes programs spanning November 2019 through May 2020.
Falling You and Beyond
The relationship has extended beyond the Lovespirals name itself. In 2017, Echoes produced a special artist feature on Falling You — the project of bandleader John Zorko — with Zorko himself joining Anji Bee and guest vocalist Danielle Colbeck at Lovespirals’ own studio for the recorded interview. The track “World On Fire,” featuring Anji’s lyrics and vocals, went on to receive airplay across at least eight Echoes programs in support of the Projekt-released album Shine.
The connection deepened further in March 2026, when Diliberto named Falling You’s Metanoia as Echoes’ CD of the Month — a richly deserved honor for an album he described as “a deliriously beautiful and poignant remaking of ancient, archetypal myths as searing dream pop.” Of the closing track “Philomena,” he noted that Anji “turns it into a fable of strength over adversity with Ryan Lum dropping in ambient guitar textures and reverberant, blues-laced accents,” calling it “a track that ends the album as strong as it began.”
A Rare and Enduring Bond
What makes this relationship remarkable is not just its longevity, but its consistency across every phase of the artists’ evolution — different band names, different lineups, different labels. Diliberto’s support has never appeared to be label-driven or trend-chasing; it reads, across nearly thirty years of documentation, as the genuine enthusiasm of a tastemaker who simply loves the music. For fans and archivists, the Echoes connection represents one of the most complete and continuous threads running through the entire Love Spirals Downwards story.