We are currently finishing up some new tracks for an EP/CD-Single to be released in the Spring of 1997. It’ll be quite unlike anything we’ve released before. Also, I think it’d be appropriate and fun to end the year with my (Ryan’s) favorite releases of 1996.
California’s LOVE SPIRALS DOWNWARDS is an enchanting outfit indeed! For those of you who aren’t familiar with LSD, please allow the words of vocalist Suzanne Perry and guitarist Ryan Lum to soak into your soul; just as their music does much of the same. LSD were formed out of two minds swirling towards one goal: to make ethereal music. And this Los Angeles-based duet have done nothing but make ethereal, transcending music on their two LP’s for the Projekt label (who have since relocated to Chicago). While the band are in the mid-way stages for their as-yet-to-be titled third LP, I urge anyone into billowing vocals and celestial guitar work to check out their latest release titled, “Ardor.” Ascending with LSD…
Requiem: You’re currently pursuing degrees at the university there, but what led you to start the on musical side of things?
Suzanne: l’ll answer that one. That’s a neat question
Ryan: Well, it was kind of something I had always been doing… It was never like, “I’m going to quit school to make music.” I never looked at music as something that I wanted to pursue seriously. I enjoy doing it, and it doesn’t take up that much time. So I’m going to school and whenever the time struck me to make music, I go off on my own way.
Suzanne: So what was the question again? Sometimes he changes it when he answers it (laughter).
Continue reading Interview in Requiem Vol. 6, Winter 1996Here’s the latest information I received from Echoes regarding our recently taped performance. Check their website to find out what local radio stations you can hear this on:
December 13, 1996
A Living Room Concert with Love Spirals DownwardsActually, it’s a bedroom concert since that’s where Suzanne Perry and Ryan Lum of Love Spirals Downwards have their home studio. We visit the duo in their Los Angeles boudoir, where they unfold the delicate filigree of their music in an intimate performance for the heavenly voice of Perry and the acoustic guitar of Lum, playing music from across their 3 albums, including the latest, Ever (Projekt).
Interview by Philip H. Farber
Love Spirals Downwards is only nominally a band. Really, they are something more of a recording project undertaken by the duo of Ryan Lum and Suzanne Perry, just having fun with their music in a home studio. The result, though, has been three albums of atmospheric, ethereal music that has the ability to transport the listener in remarkable ways. Lum and Perry have degrees in philosophy and psychology, respectively. The effectiveness of the music makes one wonder how much of their academic training plays into their art, though they tend to deny any specific influence. Their first two albums, Idylls and Ardor, were critically acclaimed, and even if this isn’t exactly the stuff of top-forty hits, they developed a solid following. Ever, their latest effort (on the Projekt label), will likely take these musicians even farther, although that may not have been their intention in recording it.
PHF: I’m only familiar with your current album, Ever. Are the previous two albums similar in tone?
Ryan: They are similar in a certain respect. I think they are very different in a certain respect. We don’t like to make the same album. Once we’ve done it, we like to move on and do something different. The first one, Idylls, is more dreamy-sounding, more eastern, more like Indian music, not much intelligible English. The guitars are more processed. It’s a floaty-airy kind of record. The second one, Ardor, is more poppy, I guess? We have some structured pop songs. She sings in English a bit more. There are less effects on the guitars. Ever branches out in all different directions. Each of the previous two had a certain sound that was at the core of it all. Ever just went off every which way that we indulged ourselves in.
Continue reading Paradigm Shift InterviewLOVE SPIRALS DOWN IS DECIDEDLY UNUSUAL
By Phillip H. Farber
Love Spirals Downward is only nominally a band. Really, they are something of a recording project undertaken by the duo of Ryan Lum and Suzanne Perry, just having fun with their music in a home studio. The result, though, has been three albums of atmospheric, ethereal music that has the ability to transport the listener in remarkable ways.
“We develop it and do it all at home,” explains Lum. “We’ve got our own home recording studio. We’ve had it for years and have just been growing and expanding it. We’re pretty well equipped to do it all at home. In fact, the way we write, too, we have to do it at home. We don’t make up 10 or 11 songs and say, ‘Okay! Time to go to the studio and record all the songs!’ I’ll have some rough sounds or ideas and I’ll record them down on tape or into the sampler, and from there I’ll start getting more ideas. It will build from what I previously recorded. That wold be a very costly, practically impossible, thing to do in the studio. We would be racking up the kind of budget of ‘Sgt. Pepper’s’ or something like that.”
Their first two albums, Idylls and Ardor, were critically acclaimed, and even if this isn’t exactly the stuff of Top 40 hits, they developed a solid following. Ever, their latest efforts, will likely take these musicians even farther, although that may not have been their intention in recording it.
“I really loathe the music business,” Perry exclaims. “I really don’t think about it. I hope people have a good experience — or a positive experience — but beyond that I don’t expect people to get much from it. That’s not my intention when I make it. I don’t even know why I do it. It’s fun for me. It’s fun. When you get past that, you get into trouble. Nobody ever experiences anything like you want them to. And who am I to want people to experience in a certain way? Beyond that, I can’t even control that… I can’t control if people are going to buy it, or even care about it.”
Continue reading Daily Freeman, Nov 29, 1996On Friday November 15 at about 8 PM we will be doing a live on-air performance on KUCI, a radio station in Orange County, California. We will be performing 5 or 6 songs, as well as doing an interview. For those who live out of its range, they are hoping to do a live internet broadcast of this. Regardless, it will be available on the internet soon after. I’ll tell you where to find it as soon as they tell me.
Also on November 14, we will be recorded live at our studio as part of the “Living Room Concert” series of the nationally syndicated radio show Echoes. I’ll let you know here when it will be aired. And on November 16, for those in the area, don’t miss the Steve Roach show in Santa Monica. He’s one of the most amazing live (as well as recording) artist I’ve ever experienced and highly recommend seeing him.
by Dan Dinello
PROJEKT’S TWO-NIGHT SHOWCASE A SUCCESS.
The gothic underground emerged in Chicago for the two-day Projekt festival, a celebration of the label’s “ethereal, gothic, dark ambient” music. Featuring nine acts that rarely perform live — including the debut of Projekt creator/owner Sam Rosenthal’s own group, Black Tape for a Blue Girl — the festival lured fans from all over the globe.
Many hardcore goths were so anxious to get inside that each night several hundred vampires, angels, witches, martyrs, undertakers, velvetized medievalists, and pierced, rubberized fetishists lined up outside the ornate Vic Theatre and risked massive makeup meltdown under the hot June sun. Once inside, they were immediately entranced by the festival’s most evocative music as tribal-ambient musician Steve Roach opened the show on both nights. Surrounded by stacks of keyboards & assorted percussion, enmeshed in organic electronic cables, Roach appeared to be wired into his instruments. He played nonstop, hour-long sets of turbulent environmental noise, primal rhythms, and cascading drones dominated by thunderous blasts of a didgeridoo.
Continue reading Alternative Press Reviews ProjektFest Chicago
The domestic release of our new full-length Ever was right on schedule and should now have made its way to stores. It will soon be released in Europe. If you are having trouble finding it, either here or abroad, you can order directly from Projekt. We hope that you’ll check out both Ever and the Sideways Forest CD-single as they are quite different from each other. Apart from the “Sideways Forest” track, the other 2 songs on the CD-single are unavailable elsewhere and are unlike anything else we’ve released.
Projekt has some very nice color posters for Ever as well as a new Love Spirals Downwards t-shirt. Try contacting Projekt or calling their 800-CD-LASER phone number for more information.
For next year, plans are being made for some West Coast and East Coast shows. I’ll post more about that later as more information develops.
Love Spirals Downwards recently appeared in the German fanzine, Black. The following is an English translation of the interview by Thomas Wacker.
The reputation of the “Ethereal Wave” precedes PROJEKT mainly because this label, next to BLACK TAPE FOR A BLUE GIRL, has one of the best—if not the best—”Heavenly Voices” bands: LOVE SPIRALS DOWNWARDS. This is Ryan Lum and Suzanne Perry, who first caused a sensation in 1992 with their debut album, ‘Idylls.’ Suzanne’s angelic, lovely voice especially delights critics and journalists, and their global fan community continues to grow.
Already in the 3rd edition of BLACK, I tried to interview Ryan Lum and failed miserably because I tried to interpret too much into the music and the meaning, and he simply wouldn’t give any information on this. I don’t want to give the impression that Ryan and Suzanne think they are above their music, and I certainly don’t want to defame the artists… no, on the contrary, I like the music of LOVE SPIRALS DOWNWARDS very much. Nevertheless, it is my job as a journalist to engage with the music and the artist and convey a picture of both to the readers.
Continue reading Black Interview with Ryan LumBryan Reeseman interviewed Ryan for a profile on Love Spirals Downwards in New Age Voice Magazine. Check out their Q & A.
Bryan: Previous L.S.D. albums have featured an ethereal, airy sound which equally balanced the vocals, guitars, and synths. What can we expect from the new album?
Ryan: Actually there’s never been that much in the way of sythns; perhaps there’s 2 songs each on Idylls and Ardor that have sythns. As far as instruments go, it’s always been more of a guitar –particularly acoustic guitar– based sound. Ever, our new album, sort of paradoxically, goes more into both a more stripped-down acoustic guitar and vocal sound, to a more all electronic sampler, analog synths, and drum machine base.
Bryan: How did you choose the direction for “Ever”?
Ryan: It just sort of happens on its own. Getting new equipment and always growing as a person makes it always new and different.
Continue reading New Age Voice Interview with Ryan Lum
