Projekt sent over some pressing clippings:
Dewdrops #16, Spring 98
Love Spirals Downwards “Sideways Forest” CD-Single Review by Brant
Continuing on consistently after Ardor and Idylls, 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.
Love Spirals Downwards “Sideways Forest” CD-Single Review by Pat
A treat in the form of a Love Spirals Downward CD single containing 3 tracks… “Sideways Forest” is the perfect blend of acoustic guitars and cooing vocals. All the echo-laced strumming and lazy heights distortions are in place and life is good. Then there’s the “quantum remix” version of “Sideways Forest,” which is more interesting and even more pleasant. It treads into fields that have nourished the likes of Bel Canto and Single Gun Theory. A gentle electro feel one might call ether-techno-madrigal-lite, but only if one were prone to fits of hyphenated clichê. Lastly, “Amarillo” returns us to the accustomed domains of LSD’s instrumental bliss, high in the clouds and as fleeting as it always should be. 9 lilies.
Under The Volcano, #36
Love Spirals Downwards “Sideways Forest” CD-Single Review by Groovy
This, unfortunately, is a single and I was a little disappointed because I’m a bit intrigued by Love Spirals Downwards. The vocalist, Suzanne Perry, has one of those mellow soothing voices that kind of wins you over. I don’t know what it is… actually I know what it is; I’m a sucker plain and simple. Anyway, there are two versions of “Sideways Forest,” along with a third track, “Amarillo.” The second version of “Sideways Forest” is a remix that explores the trance terrain with a light tapping drum and bass rhythm. It’s rather poppy, and I wouldn’t expect it to come out of the Projekt camp, but nonetheless it definitely reveals that Love Spirals Downwards has the potential to be a million dollar band. “Amarillo” gives us what we expect, dreamy atmospheric music that allows you to conjure up pleasant images –unless, of course, you have a head full of demons Needless to say, the production on this, like all of Projekt’s releases, is top of the line.
Flipside 4/1997
Love Spirals Downwards “Sideways Forest” CD-Single Review by Belalugo
If this 3 song EP is any indication, l’d definitely put my money down on a full-length CD by this band. It puts me in mind of This Mortal Coil, but has a soul and a feel all its own. I’d like to hear more.
Industrial Nation, Issue 14
Love Spirals Downwards ‘Ever’ CD Review by Lisa
As beautiful as ever, Love Spirals Downwards astonishes us with another perfect flowing CD. Ever combines Suzanne Perrys exquisite voice ‘with Ryan’s melodic guitar as aptly as before. A tad different than their previous releases, Ever is by far one of Projekt’s best releases. Love Spirals Downwards brings ethereal to a deeper realm. Heavy with a 4AD touch but unique for the most part, they have proved live and on CD that they don’t need much more than her angelic voice and his guitar. A very serene piece of art, Ever’s songs just swirl with each other. Like the more electronic devisee “Madras,” the dark and sad “Last Classic,” or the His Name is Alive reminiscent song, “Delta” and the pretty love song” Lieberflusse” singing how she is ‘the only one’. Every one of Love Spirals Downwards songs is beautiful and independent on its own, yet every title fils exactly together. This CD, along with any other Love Spirals Downward releases are highly recommended.
Chicago Free Press
Love Spirals Downwards ‘Ever’ CD Review by Dave Aftandilian
The weather outside the window would probably match your mood, if you could figure out what exactly you’re feeling. Fog swirls round and round, shot through with bright strobe flashes in green, yellow, and orange. Through a break in the mist you watch a gentle rain creating ripples in the lake, drop chasing tear to the edges of your vision like a tone too crystalline to be clearly heard, then a strong breeze wipes the lake clean, only for the ripples to disturb it again. You hear her voice again in your mind, the echo of a memory, the forever promises drifting down the years, breaking apart against the shore of hard reality, dispersed like blood in water, reforming in your veins, surging as she touches you… or was it only a dream?
Love Spirals Downwards paint these visions with incredibly complex, yet gentle, ethereal ambient strokes, Suzanne Perry’s achingly lovely voice caresses you, swaddles you in warm melody, reminding you of everyone you have ever cared for, everyone you have ever loved and lost. Ryan Lum’s softly strummed guitar grows fuzzy with distortion, clear with percussion, then disappears from view entirely, only to reappear as something completely different. Seen through the kaleidoscopic glass of Love Spirals Downwards, the world becomes a wonderfully irrational place, where very little makes sense, but everything feels right. From the sexually charged dub hypnotics of “Madras” to the subtly peripheral guitar and vocal distortions of “Promises” to the blinding white ecstasy of joining and dark loss despair of “Above the Lone,” capped off by the incredibly cool fairy dance-whirling, leaf rattling vision trip of “Ananda.” theirs is a world you will want to make your own, even as it slips through your fingers.