Category Archives: Review

Review

Flux Reviewed by KUCI FM

College radio station KUCI 88.9 FM produces a professional ‘zine to promote their shows, DJs, and favorite bands. In the most recent issue, they featured a review of Flux penned by the station’s music director, Anji Bee:

With Flux, bandleader, Ryan Lum, has fully committed himself to the electronic groove based sound first hinted at on Love Spirals Downwards’ previous album, Ever. Flux gives full play to Lum’s increasing attraction to the melodic side of drum and bass music, with 7 of 9 tracks using that unique polyrhythmic technique. Over an electronic bed of break beats, samples and synth, Lum lays down his signature guitar melodies and lush washes, using both electric and acoustic guitars. 

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Review

All Music Guide Reviews Flux

The All Music Guide has posted a review of Flux. Not sure why Tom Schulte only credited Suzanne by name and neglected to mention the album’s composer, but here it is:

Picking up on the ear-catching, edgy segmented rhythms of the breakbeat wave on Flux , Love Spirals Downward[s] updates their sound, leaving the creative core intact. It’s all about texture in this multi-layered album of Suzanne Perry’s atmospheric vocals, brightly strummed acoustic guitar, and urgent electro-beats. While Perry’s long phrasing meets the moderate rhythms to imply a midpoint, ocean coast sonic waves ebb and flow over the listener intoxicatingly. Indeed, “Sound of Waves” is the name of one of these undulating tracks. Swirling and merging, this duo’s techno-psychedelic (psychedelia implied by the gentle nod of the content without considering their titular acronym) ballads of love lost or failed (“Psyche,” “By Your Side,” and “I’ll Always Love You”) are constructed in a way that owes as much to the accessibility of pop as it does to current forms of electronica.  — Tom Schulte

For the record, “Psyche” (and “Ring”) feature Kristen Perry’s vocals/lyrics. Note also that “Sunset Bell” features Jennifer Ryan Fuller’s vocals. And you might want to know that Ryan Lum composed, performed, and produced every song on the album.

Review

Pitchfork Reviews Flux

Projekt sent us a review of Flux by Skaht Hansen of Pitchfork Media:

Rating: 9.3 

For years, Love Spirals Downwards have been the mascot leaders of Chicago- based Projekt records.  Epitomizing the label with their lush, casually paced guitars and siren vocals, Love Spirals Downwards have created their own little niche in the ambient gothic world. 

The latest album from the band, Flux , is more of the same stuff we’ve come to expect from the California-based duo with one key exception — over all of the hypnotic aural dreamscapes that have made up Love Spirals Downwards is the introduction of jungle beats.  Very weird, and something that makes you instinctively pop the disc out and make sure you put the right album in.  But it’s true. 

The combination of gothic trance and jungle rhythms isn’t something that you’d probably expect to be found on the Projekt label, or any other gothic or dark ambient label that’s trying to take itself seriously. However, within minutes of listening to this disc, you’ll think that Love Spirals Downwards has been doing it for years and everybody else is just way behind the times. 

Much less like a prelude to a dance remix, and more like an integral part of the music, electronic drums are used here in a tempo that’s plenty fast, but subdued enough to not be the foreground of the songs.  Rather, the foreground remains the interaction between effect-heavy guitar and other-worldly vocals.  Songs stand out as clearly futuristic, perhaps paving the way for a new interaction of genres that hadn’t previously been conceived. 

Slacking back and listening to “Sound of Waves” or “Ring” easily lets you believe you’ve been somehow privy to a CD warped back in time from ten years in the future.  We’ll be anxiously awaiting the next album. 

-Skaht Hansen

Review

Outburn Reviews ProjektFest LA

A review of the recent Projekt Festival appeared in Outburn Magazine, Issue 6. Here’s what Octavia said about our set:

The Los Angeles Projekt Festival: Faith & the Muse with Black Tape for a Blue Girl, Love Spirals Downwards @ Coven 13 – Los Angeles, CA 3.15.98

LA’s premiere goth hot spot, Coven 13, was host for Projekt’s first west coast festival. The El Rey Theater, with its beautiful chandeliers and comfortably large stage was the perfect place for the hundreds attending this darkwave gathering… Love Spirals Downwards’ radiant songs were enhanced by an additional guitarist and an electronic drummer to “add some get” to their usually acoustic set. The best songs came at the beginning where they worked some cool beats and electronics into their acoustic sounds. Unfortunately, the lovely and mellow mood was disrupted repeatedly by Suzanne Perry’s lengthy chit chat and attempted conversations with the audience, but the songs were enjoyed nevertheless… Overall, it was an astounding evening.

Glad to hear she enjoyed the new electronica songs from our upcoming album.

Review

Ephemera Reviews ProjektFest ‘97

A huge feature on the Chicago ProjektFest is featured in Epherma, packed with photos from this multi-day event.

Love Spirals Downward usually plays a mellower type of acoustic rock, most easily compared to the Cranes or bands of a like nature. Tonight they would debut a new style that sees more of an electronic feel. Suzanne admitted to a bout of nervousness, that preceded this appearance, and related a story about an X-files monster (the Chupacabra??) and how it’s name could be said to the beat of one of their songs. It was really quite refreshing to see a band get off their high horse and actually be friendly and personable to the audience. You felt like they were performing for you in their living room. It was nice and intimate. Except for a few NOISY people who talked all through the set it was good. The electronic songs brought up comparisons of Portishead or Lamb and still sounded a bit rough around the edges, but eventually those gave way to the acoustic guitar style that most are used to hearing form these two. What can you say, it’s sheer beauty to hear Suzanne’s voice pierce the still air. There is nothing more honest and breathtaking. They wrapped up with another electronic bit. All in all I could say that it was a very surreal performance. You would have these very beautiful songs juxtaposed with anecdotes and silly songs about a “pickleman.” It wasn’t as jarring as, say, Rasputina’s commentary but it was equally bizarre. I liked it a lot. No one should miss the opportunity to see these guys. No one.

Review

Outburn Reviews Dizzy Debbie Show

A review of our LA show is in the latest issue of Outburn, written by Octavia. Thank you for coming out and supporting!

LOVE SPIRALS DOWNWARDS W/CLAIRE VOYANT @ Dizzy Debbie, Hollywood CA 4/25/97

At first Dizzy Debbie, which appeared to be a Chinese restaurant by day, seemed to be an odd location for a night of ethereal splendor. But when Love Spirals Downwards took the small stage for a rare live appearance, they explained that they live in the apartments just behind the venue. They gave a splendid performance to a packed house that showcased the remarkable voice of Suzanne Perry and the acoustic guitar strumming of Ryan Lum. The pair joked with their friends in the audience in-between songs, which added to the relaxed and light hearted atmosphere. Most of the crowd sat on the floor quietly absorbing the simplistic beauty of their performance. Claire Voyant, who opened the show, were surprisingly impressive with beautiful vocals accompanied by soft guitar and keyboard compositions. – Octavia

Review

Ever & Sideways Forest Reviews

Projekt sent over some pressing clippings:

Dewdrops #16, Spring 98

Love Spirals Downwards “Sideways Forest” CD-Single Review by Brent

Continuing on consistently after Ardor and Idyls, the first EP from Ryan Lum and Suzanne Perry has them once again producing a dreamy mixture of female voice and swirls of guitar. Here, through, and on their wonderful third album Ever, I’d argue they’ve matured and refocussed a bit. “Sideways Forest” is perhaps the most lovely thing they’ve created to date, both nicely grounded and earthy and rising to the ether on jets of blazing guitars. When all is said and done, there will be an ambient remix of every single song ever written. The “Quantum Remix” does this for the preceding track, adding about two minutes in the process. It’s nice and dreamy. The final one, “Amarillo,” almost at once softly subdues you under a spell of half-remembered dreams and cloudy waking-thoughts. It actually sounds a lot like Soul Whirling Somewhere, building up to and melding into a droning fog. Mesmerizing! 10 lilies.

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Review

Alternative Press Reviews ProjektFest Chicago

“Making Darkwaves Over Chicago”

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.

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Review

The First Pain to Linger Review

Audio Drudge # 7, Issue 7

With this 34-minute-maxi-CD and 92-page book, Sam Rosenthal simultaneously reveals the roots of Black Tape for A Blue Girl’s last album This Lush Garden Within, and brings this period of his art to a close. The book tells the story of how Sam opened himself to loving Susan, who inspired This Lush Garden Within. Consisting of seven tracks, two previously unreleased and five from various compilations, the disc is a nice introduction for those unfamiliar with BTFBG, and a must for die-hard fans. All the tracks occupy the warm ethereal ambient realm Projekt has almost single-handedly defined; synth washes and gently strummed guitars combine with floating female vocals to produce a sensation of being suspended in a nurturing ocean of sound. I was especially charmed by the shiny, ringing wine-glass like synth and guitar of “the glass is shattered,” in whose somberly contemplative tone I saw portrayed a man sitting alone at a kitchen table bathed in afternoon sunlight, staring at a broken glass occupying an empty place at the table, wondering: “the glass is shattered / is that what makes it beautiful?” The ebbing and flowing guitar (guested by Ryan Lum of Love Spirals Downwards) and dancing lights in fog evoked by the keyboards made “overwhelmed, beneath me” a standout track as well. And the menacing synth foundations of the closing, unnamed track support glittering undersea castles of sound, which build, shimmer, then swirl away in the dark currents. Although I enjoyed almost all of the tracks, I found the lack of continuity between them disturbing, even though I knew this was a compilation LP and I shouldn’t expect continuity. Still, this is a good place to start for those curious about BTFBG, and a welcome appetizer for their next full length album, due out in May.

Review

Muse Magazine Reviews Troubadour Show

The Troubadour, Los Angeles, CA September 21, 1995:

The L.A. based duo, Love Spirals Downwards, create soundscapes layered with soothingly airy keyboards, acoustic guitar arpeggios, and ethereal female vocals. In a rare appearance at the Troubadour, Ryan Lum and Suzanne Perry stripped their music to its essentials: an amplified Ovation acoustic guitar, a haunting voice, and one beautiful melody after another. The rapt Troubadour audience responded enthusiastically to the pair, who present their music with the seriousness it deserves, but who entertain with humorously casual banter and interplay with the crowd between songs. 

— John Koenig, Muse Magazine