Positioned between Idylls and Ardor, “Kykeon” occupies a quietly pivotal place in the early history of Love Spirals Downwards. Its appearance on Silent Records’ psychedelic-themed compilation 50 Years of Sunshine — released to mark the fiftieth anniversary of LSD’s discovery by Albert Hofmann — placed the song and the band’s initials (L.S.D.) inside a cultural frame that many listeners treated as intentional.
Yet “Kykeon” also points inward, toward authorship and continuity. The song reveals how fully formed Ryan Lum’s compositional voice already was by 1991, and the surviving Kristen Perry demo offers an archival alternate-path glimpse of how the project could have sounded with a different vocalist occupying the same sonic architecture.
Its evolution across demo, compilation, and album versions documents refinement of an established sound, while public narratives supplied additional meaning through context.
Early Versions and Structural Development
“Kykeon” occupies a distinctive place in the early history of Love Spirals Downwards because its origin predates Suzanne Perry’s formal entry into Ryan Lum’s studio, and its first public appearances arrived through releases that shaped how the group was interpreted.
Originally, Lum recorded the song with Suzanne’s sister, Kristen Perry. The surviving demo — running approximately 4:04 — introduces layered “ah ah ah” vocalizations within the first ten seconds. Voice functions immediately as atmosphere, woven into Lum’s reverb-drenched guitar lattice. The harmonic pacing, suspended tonal center, and spatial production techniques are already fully formed. In this sense, “Kykeon” does not document the birth of a sound; it captures one already consolidated.
Suzanne later recalled hearing these recordings while studying abroad. In a 1992 The Altered Mind interview, she remembered:
“I was in London at the time going to school, and he was sending me tapes with my sister on it. I thought, ‘I can sing that. In fact, I can sing that better!’”
A 1993 As If interview clarifies the timeline:
Ryan: “We started singing together in January of 1991.”
Suzanne: “My sister was singing with Ryan, maybe like one or two songs… I was going to school in London for a while and hearing tapes of my sister’s… I came back, and basically a little bit after that, we started singing — I started singing on his music.”
Suzanne summarized the early demo period succinctly:
“We did two songs together; we scrapped two and kept one, then we did two more, which gave us three songs. We sent them out to Sam of Projekt and that was it. That’s how it started.”
Notably, “Kykeon” was not part of that original three-song demo (“Forgo,” “Mediterranea,” and “Dead Language”) sent to Projekt Records, nor did it appear on the 1992 debut Idylls, but later entered public circulation through the compilation and flexi-disc pathway.
At some point after Suzanne’s entry, the song was revisited with her on vocals—retaining Kristen’s ending vocal phrase nearly note for note, while reshaping the main melody and lyrics. The change placed a new lead voice at the foreground while carrying forward the same harmonic language, spatial pacing, and production grammar already present in Lum’s earlier recording.
Public Emergence: Compilation Context and Framing (1993)
“Kykeon” first appeared publicly in 1993 in two formats.
The first was 50 Years of Sunshine, released by Silent Records to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of LSD’s discovery by Albert Hofmann. The second was a limited-edition 8-inch clear flexi-disc included with issue #14 (August 1993) of The Altered Mind. Limited to 1,000 copies and also featuring a previously unreleased track by HALO, the sound sheet became a sought-after artifact within the ethereal and Projekt-adjacent scene.
The Altered Mind described the track as:
“A remix of a rare song… To date, the band’s recorded output comprises the album, the two Gray Land 3 tracks, and a song on the Silent Records compilation 50 Years of Sunshine.”
In other words, “Kykeon” entered the public sphere not as part of the band’s primary album narrative, but through a psychedelic anniversary compilation and a collectible zine insert.
The timing mattered. The band name’s initials — L.S.D. — were already conspicuous. The compilation foregrounded psychedelia. The audience was primed to connect the two.
Yet musically, the track’s inclusion on 50 Years of Sunshine represented something more practical than symbolic. As Lum noted at the time, the version would be remixed for the forthcoming album. In that sense, the compilation did not mark the culmination of the song’s development, but an intermediate stage — a public preview of material still in transition.
In that sense, the compilation did not mark the culmination of the song’s development, but an intermediate stage — a public preview of material still in transition. Before the cultural narrative surrounding the acronym fully took hold, “Kykeon” would appear once more in revised form — this time within the context of the band’s second album.
Refinement on Ardor (1994)
When Ardor was released in 1994, “Kykeon” reappeared in yet another iteration. The album version runs 4:45, slightly shorter than the 4:51 mix issued on 50 Years of Sunshine, and markedly longer than the 4:04 Kristen Perry demo. Ryan Lum had indicated in a 1993 Fond Affexxions interview that the compilation version would be remixed for the upcoming album. When asked the following year about the differences, he clarified:
“It’s not the same version, but it’s roughly the same thing.”
That phrasing is telling. “Kykeon” on Ardor is less a reinvention than a refinement.
Structurally, the song retains its core architecture: suspended harmonic progression, layered clean guitars treated with delay and reverb, and a gradual intensification toward a closing vocal coda. The most striking difference lies in pacing. In the Kristen demo, vocals enter almost immediately — within ten seconds — functioning as textural atmosphere. In contrast, both the 50 Years of Sunshine mix and the Ardor version withhold vocals until deep into the track: approximately 3:05 on the compilation mix and 3:02 on Ardor.
This delayed entry reshapes the listening experience. Rather than voice guiding the piece from the outset, Lum’s instrumental lattice establishes a three-minute environment before Suzanne’s lyrics appear. The atmosphere is no longer framed by vocal abstraction; it is constructed instrumentally first.
Lyrically, Suzanne’s version differs significantly from the Kristen demo. The earlier refrain — “she walks into sheltered walls” — disappears. In its place are lines adapted from Kahlil Gibran’s “On Crime and Punishment,” drawn from The Prophet (1923):
“Unbidden shall it call in the night
And gaze, upon themself
Your needs, my love…”
The shift from impressionistic repetition to literary adaptation introduces a new layer of thematic gravity. Yet even as the lyrical content changes, the song’s emotional temperature remains consistent: hushed, interior, suspended between melancholy and transcendence.
Perhaps most revealing is the ending. The closing “ah ah ahh” vocal motif — present in the Kristen demo — is preserved in Suzanne’s recording nearly note for note. It functions as a subtle bridge between incarnations, a sonic continuity that survives vocal succession.
If anything, the Ardor version clarifies what had already been there. The harmonic language, the sense of inward drift, the patient build — these are Lum’s signatures from the beginning. Suzanne’s entry does not alter the architecture; it reframes it with a more defined lyrical voice and expanded expressive control.
In this sense, “Kykeon” across its demo, compilation, and album forms illustrates evolution without rupture. The sound was established early. What changed was emphasis, pacing, and public context.
“Kykeon,” LSD, and the Band Name Controversy
The inclusion of “Kykeon” on 50 Years of Sunshine drew attention to Love Spirals Downwards’ initials. Released by Silent Records, the compilation marked the 50th anniversary of LSD’s discovery by Albert Hofmann. Given the coincidence of the band’s acronym, some listeners assumed a deliberate association.
In a 1993 Tear Down the Sky interview, Ryan Lum addressed the perceived contradiction:
“It seems like it could be a contradiction, but it’s not… What sounds best is what works.”
Suzanne Perry added:
“Supposedly it’s not even grammatically correct to say Love Spirals Downwards.”
Lum was unequivocal:
“There’s no connection to get. We are not saying ‘take acid’ or ‘don’t take acid.’ Do as you choose.”
Yet the cultural climate of the early 1990s made the association difficult to ignore. That year, the band appeared in coverage connected to the LSD anniversary issue of Option, one of the most widely circulated alternative music magazines in the United States. In an AS IF interview, Lum acknowledged the unexpected benefit:
“That’s kind of helped us, in a way… we’ve been included on a compilation on Silent Records called 50 Years of Sunshine, which is a tribute to Albert Hofmann’s first accidental ingestion of LSD.”
Suzanne noted that Option had asked them to participate in LSD-related coverage, reflecting what Lum described as “some kind of revival.” In a 1993 Fond Affexxions interview, Perry was candid about how that framing felt:
“Well actually, and I told Option, I’ve never taken LSD, and from then on they weren’t interested in what I had to say.”
Lum added that interviewers sometimes seemed eager to “get us to come out and say how we’re big druggies,” while Perry joked that they were “putting drugs in our mouths.”
The exchange reveals something about the period. Psychedelia was enjoying renewed cultural curiosity, and artists whose names or imagery suggested a connection were often steered toward that narrative. For Love Spirals Downwards, however, the name had been chosen for its aesthetic resonance rather than chemical implication.
As Perry explained in As If, the shift from “Love Spirals Upwards” to “Downwards” simply felt more aligned with their sound, regardless of how it might be misperceived:
“It fit the genre better, we figured. It fit our music better, and also there was that acronym, which was kind of interesting. I was conscious of it , and I said that people would say things about the music and philosophize about the name or something. A lot of people think the name fits our music; it’s kind of that transcendence, that same kind of thing.”
Ultimately, however, Ryan said it was an aesthetic choice:
“Plus, it’s hard to think of a good band name. I like the way it sounds. Forget meaning; I like the aesthetics of the way Love Spirals Downwards looks and sounds.”
The Psychedelic Undertones of ‘Kykeon’
Interestingly, the title “Kykeon” itself carries psychedelic connotations. In ancient Greece, kykeon was a sacred drink used in the Eleusinian Mysteries, religious rites believed to grant initiates transformative visions of life and death. The drink, made of barley and herbs, may have contained psychoactive properties—drawing parallels to LSD’s mind-altering effects.
This connection to altered consciousness also resonated with Ryan Lum’s long-standing fascination with psychedelic music of the ’60s. He often cited bands like Jefferson Airplane and Popol Vuh as formative influences, particularly for their ability to create expansive, mind-altering soundscapes. His appreciation for music as a means of transcendence extended beyond rock—he also found deep inspiration in Indian classical music. After attending live performances of sitar and tabla at Occidental College, he reflected:
“The music took everyone on the same ‘trip.’ It was impossible to be there experiencing the performance and not have your consciousness taken on a journey by the power of the music.”
This hypnotic, transportive quality became central to Love Spirals Downwards’ music. While the band never explicitly aligned themselves with psychedelia, Kykeon’s inclusion on 50 Years of Sunshine—whether intentional or not—suggested a thematic resonance given the song’s dreamlike atmosphere and the band’s deep connection to transcendent musical experiences.
The True Origin of Love Spirals Downwards’ Name
Despite the LSD-related speculation, the real inspiration for the band’s name was far less psychedelic—and, in their own words, almost accidental.
By 1995, Love Spirals Downwards had grown tired of repeatedly addressing the meaning behind their initials. In an interview with Danse Macabre, Suzanne Perry acknowledged the persistent curiosity:
“Did you know we did a song for the Fifty Years of Sunshine: Tribute to LSD? So people ask us since it’s LSD (Love Spirals Downwards), ‘Do you guys take LSD?’ We used to say it has no meaning, but now we say, “We think love spirals downwards,” so we can just say that.”
At that point, they had settled on a simple, poetic response. But the actual story of how they chose the name, as revealed in a 1996 Black Moon interview, was much less deliberate.
“It wasn’t really anything,” Ryan Lum admitted. “We had to pick a band name because when we sent out the demo tapes, we needed a name. We were pressed to come up with something quickly.”
Initially, they didn’t even take the idea of forming a band seriously. Perry recalled that before settling on a name, they jokingly referred to themselves as The Flower People, a reference to Spinal Tap. Other potential names were equally absurd, including Peter Pancreous.
Then, late one night, while sitting in a parked car outside Perry’s house, they heard a phrase on the radio that stuck with them.
“We were listening to the radio one night late to a new age show, and the woman was saying, ‘love, it spirals, upwards, upwards!’ It stuck in Suzanne’s head because it was really late. It was 3 or 4 in the morning. It tripped us out a lot. So we said, ‘OK, that’s the band name, Love Spirals Upwards.‘”
They initially decided on Love Spirals Upwards, but something about it didn’t sit right, as Suzanne continued,
“We thought about it. The acronym was LSU, which is Louisiana State University. There’s something cheesy about love spirals upward, you know?”
A friend ultimately suggested changing “upwards” to “downwards,” both to better fit the band’s melancholic sound and because of the acronym, as Suzanne explained in a 1993 interview with AS IF:
“A friend of ours suggested that we call ourselves Love Spirals Downwards. It fit the genre better. It fit our music better, and also there was that acronym, which was kind of interesting. A lot of people think the name fits our music; it’s kind of that transcendence, that same kind of thing.”
The band was aware of the drug reference, but it wasn’t the driving force behind the name. As Lum clarified in a 1997 KUCI interview:
“Anyway, our choice of a band name didn’t follow from our wanting to associate ourselves with the drug. It’s hard to think of a name. We should have just sent it out as Ryan and Suzanne.”
After years of answering the same question, he had clearly had enough.
Continuity in Transition
Across its 4:04 demo with Kristen Perry, its 4:51 compilation mix, and its 4:45 Ardor incarnation, the song traces the refinement of a sound already firmly established in Ryan Lum’s early studio work. The harmonic language, spatial pacing, and atmospheric restraint remain constant; shifts in lyric, vocal pacing, and mix emphasis create subtly distinct listening experiences within the same compositional architecture.
The transition from Kristen to Suzanne Perry did not introduce a radically new expressive axis so much as a refinement of an already emerging vocal aesthetic. As sisters, Kristen and Suzanne shared a naturally similar tonal color — clear, bell-like upper registers shaped by sustained vowels, gentle melismatic turns, and the mystical style that defined much of the late 80’s/early 90’s ethereal scene. At the time, the general public was unaware that a different vocalist had ever occupied the space; aside from a few brief interview mentions, the early Kristen recordings remained a private studio artifact.
This hidden history would later serve as a blueprint for the project’s survival. During the recording of 1998’s Flux, when Suzanne became less involved in the creative process, Lum was able to quietly bring Kristen back into the studio to complete the tracks “Psyche” and “Ring.” Because their timbres “seamlessly dovetailed,” as Carpe Noctem later noted, the return of the original collaborator went largely undetected by the general public. This effectively validates the “archival alternate-path” first glimpsed in the 1991 “Kykeon” demo: that the project’s identity was rooted in Lum’s atmosphere, capable of hosting either sister within its walls without breaking the listener’s suspension of disbelief.
What shifted between versions of “Kykeon” was not the underlying architecture, but the lyrical framing and the degree of structural patience afforded to it. The song’s public life also shows how framing accretes meaning. Released first through a psychedelic anniversary compilation and circulated alongside an acronym with built-in cultural charge, “Kykeon” carried an LSD association into reviews and audience interpretation, even as the band articulated an aesthetic basis for the name. Between Idylls and Ardor, “Kykeon” documents continuity under revision: one musical vocabulary, multiple versions, and a public narrative that traveled alongside the music.