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.
Thanks to everybody that came out to Nightnoise last weekend. I’ll be doing some more DJ’ing in conjunction with Flux giveaways over the next few months. The next one will be in San Francisco at La Belle Epoque (at The Top) on January 30, and possibly Mexico City in March.
And a very big thanks to everybody who has bought Flux, making it the most sucessful new album launch in the label’s history! It’s well on its way to surpasing our previous albums, which are the label’s top selling releases. Thanks!
Live shows: people keep asking us what’s up and we still have no confirmed shows to report. We are talking with several promoters, so hopefully soon there will be some set dates. In the meantime, Suzanne and I will be doing one live performance on radio, and there are several radio interviews coming up as well.
So here’s the complete rundown of confirmed things that we will be doing:
Ryan of Love Spirals Downwards DJs Saturday, January 30, 1999
La Belle Epoque, located at The Top, San Francisco, CA
Ryan will be DJing, spinning records that are in a similar mood as well as an inspiration to Love Spirals’ album Flux. There will also be a giveaway of Flux CDs and stickers. More info to come soon.
Ryan and Suzanne perform live
Wednesday December 16, 1998 at 8PM – 10PM PST.
On “Space Disco For Fish Tacos” KUCI 88.9 FM, Irvine, CA
Space Disco For Fish Tacos has been on the air for three years, featuring weekly live performances and interviews by electronic musicians from southern California and abroad. KUCI is now broadcasting via the internet! KUCI broadcasts 24/7 on the internet through java-based streaming technology. All you need is a net connection (the faster the better) and a modern browser (AOL may not work) — try it out at www.kuci.org
Radio interview with Ryan
Friday, December 4, 1998. 8PM EST.
On WRAS 88.5 FM, Atlanta, GA
Ryan will be talking live on the air! WRAS’ phone set up does not allow callers to ask Ryan questions directly, but you can e-mail your questions (in advance) to Jez and she’ll pose them for you.
Radio Interview with Ryan
Saturday, December 5, 1998. 10PM to midnight PST.
“Oblivion” on KLYK 105.5 CITY, Longview, WA
The show can be heard in parts of Portland, OR as well.
Radio Interview with Ryan
Sunday, December 6, 1998. 8PM to 10PM PST.
“The All-Purpose Nuclear Bedtime Story,” KUCI 88.9 FM, Irvine, CA
With DJs Anji B. and Justin J. KUCI broadcasts 24/7 on the internet through a java-based streaming technology. All you need is a net connection and a modern browser (AOL may not work). Try it out at www.kuci.org
On Sunday November 22, I’ll be spinning at Nightnoise (in Costa Mesa, California) from 8:30 to 10 pm. I’ll be bringing along my records that are in a similar mood as well as an inspiration to our album Flux. There will also be a giveaway of Flux CDs and posters.
Attention Southern California Fans:
Nightnoise is Orange County’s only chill out weekly. Resident DJs Chowderhead and Mr. Lumpy (along with occasional guest DJ’s and live bands) accent the atmosphere of the Gypsy Den cafe, located in the LAB in Costa Mesa, with genre-crossing experimental, ambient, downtempo, dub ‘n’ bass, drone hop, space rock, sonicollagism. The event is free and happens Sundays from 7 to 11 pm at 2930 Bristol, Costa Mesa. Call 714.549.7012 for more info.
Projekt sent over more details on our special feature for the Echoes radio program. The show is set to air Thursday 10/29, and then repeat again on Sunday 11/1, as well as Sunday 11/8, so you have three chances to catch it. Here’s the official promotional blurb they’re going with:
LOVE SPIRALS DOWNWARDS – MUSIC & MINDS IN FLUX
Love Spirals Downwards is a duo that has chartered the ethereal world of post-Cocteau Twins music with the haunting, wordless vocals of Suzanne Perry and the textured music of Ryan Lum. ‘Flux’ is their first album since they broke up as a couple and the trip-hop beats seem to represent the fracturing of their relationship. We gather them both in a room to sort out a group in flux.
Today is Suzanne’s birthday! Happy Birthday Suzy!!!
The article on us in the November issue of Keyboard is out and I’m excited about us and Massive Attack sharing the same page. If you don’t have their latest, Mezzanine, get it! It’s my favorite release of the year.
Lots has been going on with the release of Flux, which continues its great run on sales and radio. If you still haven’t bought Flux yet (you’ve all got it by now right?), you should be able to find it at most stores including Tower, Virgin, and Borders. Plus, Flux is featured in Borders listening stations now until November 16.
There’s still no shows to announce as of yet. The good news is that Suzanne and I have now started rehearsing and working on music again, after a several month break that both of us needed after finishing Flux.
Projekt sent over some news about Flux radio play. Firstly, the album debuted on the College Music Journal at #110 on 8/19/98, rising to #65 by its third week. As of this week, it’s sitting at #198. Apparently Flux hit #57 on Gavin’s College Chart on 9/11, meaning it was just 7 spins away from making the Top 50.
The Gavin Report and CMJ are radio industry publications that both chart music being played and also help promote new music, so its good to know the album is getting a little notice there.
Additionally, it’s cool to hear that our local station, KCRW in Santa Monica, has been showing Flux some love. Mike Morrison has apparently played us several times on Weekend Becomes Ecclectic. Lisa went on to note:
As you know, KCRW is a pioneer station, spotting and breaking bands months before other astute radio programmers are aware of the music.
Love Spirals Downwards – Constantly In A State Of Flux
By Daniel Bremmer
Love Spirals Downwards has always had a problem fitting in to any specific category. As on the first artists signed to Projekt, Ryan Lum and Suzanne Perry have been lumped in the same ethereal category as label mates Black Tape for a Blue Gil and Lycia. “I think our music is somewhat melancholy. Some goths really get off on it, some don’t,” remarks Perry. A friend introduced the duo to Projekt, which at the time were a small Pasadena label which largely served to release label owner Sam Rosenthal’s band, Black Tape for a Blue Girl. “I’ve seen the piles of demos from bands that would give their left arm to be on Projekt, and we had never even heard of them. They were really small then, we were at the right place at the right time,” says Lum.
While the swirling guitars, dreamy female vocals, and lush atmospheric landscapes of their first three releases have not exactly clashed with other dark wave artists, the duo have certainly not considered themselves to be a goth band. Nowhere else has Love Spirals Downwards experienced the effects of being considered a goth band as when they perform live. With the exception of a few small shows, a majority of their performances have been promoted as goth shows. One recent example was ProjektFest 98, hosted by Coven 13 and billed as “An Evening of Gothic Music.” When remarking on Coven 13’s resident DJ, Jason Levitt’s rather unethereal and wholly uninspired teeny-bop top 40 set, Perry laughs and states that “He’ll play the same records next week, and the week after, and the week after that! As though he has not been playing them since 1985 or something? That’s pathetic. I’m embarrassed for those people.”
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.
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.
