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 was influenced by many artists of different styles, including Harold Budd, Brian Eno, classical music of India, Cocteau Twins, Dead Can Dance, Slowdive, the other Projekt groups, the Orb, the Primal Scream, the Grateful Dead, the Pink Floyd, 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, but then my subsequent evolution led me to more ‘psychedelic’ bands like the 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 particular meaning in mind, we just liked the sound of the name.

DAVYD: Were you together as a band previous to being in the area?

SUZANNE: I guess in ’91 we started? Well, I’ve always been singing and he’s been doing music for a really long time. We actually were going out before we started doing music together. I had never done music with anyone before. We did a few songs together then trashed those 2 or 3 songs because we didn’t think they were too good, did a few more and put them on a demo tape and sent them off. At that time we were calling ourselves The Flower People as a joke.

DAVYD: Did any of the songs you were working on then make it on your CD?

RYAN: Our song “Forgo” is on our album and that’s one of those songs, “Dead Language” is also on our album. We also have a couple songs on Projekt compilations.

SUZANNE: That’s pretty much how we started, I was just basically fooling around. He had a lot of instrumental stuff and I just started humming on it and it worked.

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.

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)