Before the lush, atmospheric textures of Idylls reached a global audience, Love Spirals Downwards had to define themselves from the ground up. This is the original letter sent alongside their three-song cassette demo—”Mediterranea,” “Forgo,” and “Dead Language”—in a 1991 attempt to secure label backing.
More than just a promotional pitch, this document serves as a foundational manifesto. It captures the duo during their formative college years, a period of intense creative and intellectual incubation. The writing bears the distinct marks of Ryan Lum’s academic pursuits, articulating a rigorous philosophical stance on the rejection of traditional lyricism. It is a fascinating archival piece: a snapshot of two students transforming their academic inquiries into a radical new musical identity.
“Dissatisfied with current trends and styles in much of today’s pop music, our music is a unique blend of what we find to be aesthetically pleasing. To us, our music transcends any pigeonhole categorization into one particular style or genre.
Elements from East Indian music, psychedelic rock, and ethereal, among others, can be found in our music. In creating atmosphere, we meld ‘exotically’ tuned and processed acoustic as well as electric guitars with female vocals and percussion. In breaking with more conventional vocals, we completely abandon the use of language as a conveyer of thought and emotion in hopes that the entire musical piece, instrumental and vocals, work as one artistic expression.
We are comprised of two people: Suzanne and Ryan and we are both from the Los Angeles area. Suzanne’s voice is accompanied by guitars, keyboards and other instruments played by Ryan. All three songs on this demo were recorded, mixed and produced by us in our 8-track studio.”
The manifesto’s claims are strikingly evident in the three tracks included in that original demo. While “Mediterranea” establishes an atmospheric foundation, “Forgo” and “Dead Language” serve as the primary proofs of concept.
In these tracks, the duo’s stated goal is realized: language is stripped of its semantic weight and repurposed as pure texture. This is most notable in the way they fulfill their promise of “East Indian” influences; in “Dead Language,” the vocalizations appear to be drawn from Sanskrit devotional names and titles. By utilizing these sacred phonetics, Perry moves beyond mere “vocalizing” to a form of sonic invocation—using the sound of the words to reach an emotional state, while bypassing their literal definitions.
However, while this demo represents a perfect realization of that initial philosophy, the full body of work on Idylls would eventually move beyond these strict boundaries. Rather than strictly adhering to this “non-lyrical” mandate, the full body of Idylls exists in a state of constant oscillation between these abstract, phonetic textures and moments of impressionistic poetry, creating a dynamic tension between the desire for pure atmosphere and the pull of human expression. This interplay—the ebb and flow between sound and meaning—is more fully explored in Idylls: The Ethereal Beginnings of Love Spirals Downwards.