Category Archives: Band News

Interview

El Financerio Interview

The band were interviewed by one of the major newspapers in Mexico, El Fianancerio, after their headlining concert in Mexico City. Appearing in the Cultural section of the primarily business and financial news focused paper, the article is titled “A Pale Shadow.” Below is a translation from the original Spanish with slight formatting changes to indicate the speaker. A scan of the clipping faxed over to Projekt follows.

Love Spirals Downwards at the Museo del Chopo

by Oscar Enrique Orneleas

Suzanne Perry (25 years old) and Ryan Lum (28) met in the record store where they worked in Los Angeles, California. A pair of young Americans, like any ordinary couple. “Jack and Diane,” by John Cougar, if you know what I mean. But here the story doesn’t end in an “tragedia Americana”—it’s the style of the writer Theodore Dreiser. Perry (voice) and Lum (various sounds, electric guitars and synthesizers) have integrated their home studio and create pieces as varied as any of the records they listen to. Using a longer name with their two last names together, Love Spirals Downwards (don’t try to translate it, it’s more complicated than it seems), they have two albums: “Idylls” (1992) and “Ardor” (1995), both released on the independent label Projekt, begun by Sam Rosenthal. Ethereal music, guided by the ancestral catalog of dark and ethnic music (“folk” at one time), anything you can imagine. Perry and Lum were in Mexico to offer one solo recital yesterday, on the stage of the University Museum of Chopo. In the evening, this same duo offered some answers to ‘El Financiero’.

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Interview

B-Sides July/Aug 1995 Feature Interview

“Ecstasy of Angels: Love Spirals Downwards” By Rossi Dudrick

Winged for an astral Odyssey, you’ll soar on a freed soul fantasia, where elation and melancholy are locked in epoch embrace. A sweet chanteuse’s vocals seem to sweep over misty moors, while guitar chords fall like shimmery sunlight on deep pools of tranquility. The height of your ascension is up to you, for even a modern day Icarus now has a second chance.

Although Love Spirals Downwards’ music seems to flow from a wellspring of divine inspiration, the creators of these soft-focus mood montages have no stigmatas flooding their teacups.  Such cameo apparitions burst like soap bubbles upon meeting the diaphanous duo, vocalist Suzanne Perry, and guitarist Ryan Lum.  In the midst of a torrential downpour, they look like two fresh-faced college kids on a tailgater’s rush indoors for safe harbor more than members of the ethereal’s exotic elite.

Over a rainy day breakfast in a ‘50’s time warp diner, the pertinent debate of the moment is omelets vs. blueberry pancakes.  It’s unanimous; stacks of belly whopping blues all around!  Hunger pangs aside, Suzanne and Ryan exude an easygoing warmth and unpretentiousness that sparks candid rapport. “Most people are surprised that we’re down-to-earth, normal people, always joking and really practical; not head in the clouds types,” emphasizes Suzanne. “But what confounds most people is how little time I spend thinking about my music, or think[ing] of myself as a musician.”

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Interview

Dusk Memories Interview with Love Spirals Downwards

Italian Goth fanzine, DUSK MEMORIES – N°5 Winter 94 (ATARAXIA ROSA CRUX CRANES),, features an interview with Ryan. Below is a translation into English and the original ‘zine.

LOVE SPIRALS DOWNWARDS: Un amore mai perduto (A Love Never Lost)

By Di ANNA MIONI

Ryan Lum, who plays all the instruments in Love Spirals Downwards, a new group from the Californian label Projekt, answered some of our questions.

DM: Which groups have influenced you the most?

RYAN: I’ve been influenced by many artists from different genres, including Harold Budd, Brian Eno, classical Indian music, Cocteau Twins, Dead Can Dance, Slowdive, the other Projekt groups, The Orb, Primal Scream, The Grateful Dead, Pink Floyd, and The Beatles. I recently discovered the Ordo Equitum Solis, and I like them a lot. A long time ago (1986–88), I was very passionate about 4AD artists, especially the Cocteau Twins, but my subsequent evolution led me to more “psychedelic” bands like Popul Vuh of the early 70s. I still like Cocteaus, though: the first song of the new album is incredible!

DM: What does the name of the band mean?

RYAN: We didn’t have any specific meaning in mind, we just liked the sound of the name.

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Interview

Tear Down the Sky: The Big Music Issue 1993 Interview

I received Idylls in the mail from Projekt and put it in my CD player… After commenting on it being better than anything the Cocteau Twins have done since Lullabies, a friend angrily takes it out. But it’s true. The intensity quickly lost by the ‘C-word’ is present ten-fold here… LSD have released a CD on the increasingly amazing Projekt label, entitled Idylls, in addition to a contribution to the Fifty Years of Sunshine comp. and a flexi from Altered Mind, an LA based ‘zine. Upcoming plans include a track on the Black Tape cover CD and a second CD. All can be acquired by writing Projekt: Darkwave… Luckily I used my summer’s journey across this “Grey Land” of ours (pun intended) as an opportunity to meet with friends old and new and spent a wonderful afternoon with Ryan and Suzanne of Love Spirals Downwards… Here are some extractions from our very informal interview…

r = Ryan s = Suzanne m = me

We’ll skip the babble about early Ministry…

r: I’m mad. I just realized we’re going to miss Taco Bell tonight.

m: A friend of mine asked me where I wanted to eat lunch today and , of course, I said that I had to eat at Taco Bell. It’s the fast food chain of choice for both of us. The Projekt crew are down with Taco Bell.

r: We used to have a thing for Subway earlier in the year. The Veggies and Cheese six inch is $1.99 and when the Cold Cut Combo goes on sale it’s $1.49, so when I was living in Santa Barbara I would buy the Cold Cut Combo because it was 50 cents cheaper and I’d go out and find a homeless person and give the meat to them. So look at this, I’m saving money and I’m happy, and I’m giving food to a homeless person.

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Band News

Ruídos Alternativos Feature

Pretty crazy how people as far away as Brazil know about Love Spirals Downwards. Ruídos Alternativos #9 has a one-page feature on the band. Below is a an English translation as well as the original article.

Love Spirals Downwards

It all began with Ryan Lum, a lover of bands from the acclaimed 4AD label, who recorded tapes just to satisfy himself. They were instrumental songs that didn’t worry about vocals. He has played guitar since he was 15 and started composing in ’86. For about five years, the sound developed, grew, and created its own style. Then Suzanne Perry appeared.

From this meeting on, vocals gained a certain importance in Love Spirals’ music. They recorded some demos and sent them to a few labels, including Projekt. Sam responded and asked to hear more and more material. Later, he asked if they would like to appear on the compilation “From Across This Gray Land No. 3” (92). They accepted and sent two [songs] — “Mediterranea” and “And The Wood Comes Into Leaf”. Soon after, they received the invitation to release their own CD, and then came the excellent “Idylls”, also in ’92.

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Interview

Fond Affexxions Version 1.2, Indian Summer 1993

IDYLLS:

Fond Affexxions: This CD of yours. Idylls  was your first recorded piece, and I was very impressed. As far as how it came out… Were you happy with it? Did it come out as you intended? 

Suzanne Perry: After working on it as long as we did, you really don’t want to hear it anymore (Laughter), so think we stopped listening to it for a couple of months. Then when we started listening to it again, it came out better than we thought it did. I mean, every time we finished a song. I thought. God, what an awful song. Let’s not use that one…  In retrospect, after that’s worn off, we like it. I like it better now. 

Ryan Lum: After the CD came out (a couple months later ahead), I started liking it more. Even when I finished mixing it, it pretty much came out like I wanted it to. It wasn’t a disaster or anything. 

Suzanne Perry: We didn’t have a DAT machine before, so we had to mix it all at once. 

Fond Affexxions: You mixed it all and then bumped it to DAT? 

Ryan Lum: No, no… over about three weeks we mixed it down… I guess that’s a long time. I was kinda nervous having it for three weeks!(Laughter) 

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Band News

Altered Mind #14, August 1993 LSD + Halo Flexi-Disc

Our friends at The Altered Mind are offering a FREE flexi disc with the latest issue! Here’s the details listed in the zine:

The two bands above contributed to the AM’s first audio release, an 8’/” clear flexi-disc soundsheet. The total running time of the two songs is 7:12. The HALO track is previously unreleased and the Love Spirals Downwards track is a remix of a rare song. Some of the issues came with the free flexi, but we pressed it in a limited edition of only 1000 copies. If you did not receive one free, we are offering them for $2 for the first one and $1 for each additional soundsheet.

— Altered Mind

There’s also a nice little writeup about the band:

Since the release of their debut album Idylls in December 1992, Love Spirals Downwards have broken Projekt sales records without precedent. The duo made their first recorded appearance on Projekt’s August 1992 From Across This Gray Land #3 compilation, opening the album with two mesmerizing tracks from a then-unknown band. To date, the band’s recorded output comprises the album, the two Gray Land tracks, and a song on the Silent Records compilation Fifty Years of Sunshine.

When asked what makes their music so alluring among the bands on the Projekt roster, Ryan Lum and Suzanne Perry affirm their uniqueness on the label. “Compared to other Projekt bands, we’re more accessible, but that’s not what makes it alluring. What’s so good about the ethereal turn we’ve taken on the gothic scene is that it’s more uplifting, not depressing. It’s escapist music.”

Love Spirals Downwards are currently working on new material for a Proiekt album with a slated release for Summer ’94.

As if that weren’t cool enough, the band is also featured full-page on the back cover, which is actually printed upside down and looks like an alternate cover for this issue.

Interview

As If, Issue 2, August 1993

+ Interview by Clint Catalyst +

One evening in August, I had the opportunity to speak with Ryan and Suzanne of the band Love Spirals Downwards. After difficulties with my answering machine and the discovery that Ryan’s mom used to live in Russellville, Arkansas (small world, huh?), they were both friendly and eager to discuss the vital information of their musical endeavors. Maybe they were both in good spirits from the Japanese food they had just finished eating, but they seem like tremendous individuals…

As If: When did the two of you first “hook up,” so to speak?

Ryan: We started singing together in January of 1991.

Suzanne: My sister was singing with Ryan, maybe like one or two songs, and then I was going to school in London for a while and hearing tapes of my sister’s, and they never really got off the ground and did that much stuff. So I came back, and basically a little bit after that, we started singing — I started singing on his music — and from then on, we sent out some tapes. Projekt Records liked us and asked us if we wanted to be on Grey Land III.

Ryan: We knew almost nothing about the label, actually.

Continue reading As If, Issue 2, August 1993 →
Band News, Review

Altered Mind 13, May 1993: Idylls Review

Ariel wrote a a very kind review of ‘Idylls’ for the latest issue of Altered Mind. It reads:

With their two debut tracks on Projekt comp From Across This Gray Land #3, Love Spirals Downwards promoted a beautiful first album. They didn’t warn s that it would approach the sublime. The perfect pairing of Suzanne Perry’s ethereal siren vocal and Ryan Lum’s intricately crafted instrumentation is the ideal vehicle for LSD’s dreamlike music. The sound is soothing, uplifting, and energizing all at once, and is marked by both delicacy and force. The 13 songs, instead of merging into a trail of similar and overused patterns, are diverse. All this from a debut CD. I can’t wait to hear their next effort.

Be sure to check out the Love Spirals Downwards interview in Altered Mind #12.

Interview

Isolation #13, February/March 1993

The following interview was done with Ryan of the Southern California ethereal band Love Spirals Downwards in late September 1992. Suzanne, the singer, wasn’t present during the interview because after she saw Ryan’s comments they covered “most everything she would also cover.” Love Spirals Downwards appeared on the infamous From Across This Gray Land No. 3 and their debut album will be out in December 92 on Projekt as well. I can’t wait because I know this band will be one of the best in the country.

Interview by Nathan Linscheid

Isolation: What bands were you in before Love Spirals Downwards?

Ryan: I was in several, but none which you would have heard of. Love Spirals Downwards was the first band I had in which I really thought that the music was exciting and original sounding I believe that all the different types of music that I have listened to throughout the years such as ethereal, ambient, East Indian Classical, psychedelic ’60’s, and tribal/percussive have been blended into our eclectic sound — though I’m not sure if you can hear all these things just from our two songs on Gray Land 3. Our CD/CS, Idylls, will have a more all-inclusive representation of our sound.

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