“Honey and Cool Jazz ‘n’ Rock: An interview with Ryan Lum and Anji Bee of Lovespirals”
Matt:Ryan – Anji’s voice is hauntingly memorable; her voice sticks in my mind long after I heard the songs. Are you as hypnotized by her ability to mesh with your vision of how Lovespirals songs should be communicated as we are hearing it?
Ryan: Yeah, it’s surprising how her voice just fits perfectly. I’m very lucky. Her voice has been as important as anything in the evolution of our music together.
Matt:Anji, obviously you are an excellent fit with Lovespirals. The forward progression of the band incorporates you better than many bands undergoing a shift in style. How do you feel your involvement with Lovespirals changes the band? Have you brought your own influences into the structure of the band’s musical vision?
Anji: It would be impossible for me not to bring my own influences into the band, since we are a collaborative team. I think I bring an earthier element to the music. My vocals are very lyrically based, as opposed to Suzanne’s more non-verbal stylings, and my sound is more soulful compared to her purely ethereal sound.
Lovespirals will play on Saturday, March 25th, 2006 at Club Dada X in Mexico City, at 9 pm. The first show in support of their new album, Free & Easy – distributed in Mexico by Noise Kontrol – will also commemorate the club’s 7th anniversary. Ryan and Anji will perform a 1 hour set of songs from both Lovespirals albums, highlighting their soft, soulful, jazz and blues influenced material. The band will be available to autograph CDs after their set. CDs will be on sale at the event. (Show info via the above link)
A few reviews of our new album have been coming in.
Matt Rowe of MusicTap wrote: “Lovespirals’ evolutionary path has brought it down the road from gothic shoegazer pop to hypnotically provocative jazz that is, at once, sexy, sultry, and dreamy. Anji Bee possesses a voice of honey, and a natural element that adds colour and flame to songs, exploring realms of intensities in varying degrees. With Ryan Lum adding stylish guitar and keyboards to permeate the silky fabric of the new album, the lover of jazz in all of its incarnations will be quite entranced.”
Ned Raggett of All Music Guide wrote: “Lovespirals here are much more in the creative vein of an act like the Thievery Corporation instead of the Cocteau Twins. Lum’s interest in DJing and techno can readily be heard throughout. Bee’s singing is a perfect counterpoint, a blend of classic mid-century jazz- pop flow and a bit of ’60s cool in a French or Brazilian sense — some low-key scatting here, some warm, playful crooning there.”
John Evanstan of “Pop Stops” for The Star wrote: “The Southern California duo of Ryan Lum and Anji Bee bring to mind the cool, sensual jazz of Sade [with] their downbeat, sultry late-night sound. Lum plays a sedate electric guitar and gently jazzy Rhodes piano to back up Bee as she croons and seduces at the microphone. It’s a deliciously soothing combination.”
With the new album comes a new band bio and portrait. Check out the one-sheet and photo below:
Lovespirals’ sophomore offering, Free & Easy, is actually band founder Ryan Lum’s 6th album, having released 4 other 10,000+ selling Projekt titles under the extended moniker, Love Spirals Downwards. Since 1991, multi-instrumentalist/producer Lum has been slowly but steadily perfecting his craft, mesmerizing listeners with a dreamy combination of ethereal rock, folk, and electronica, enhanced by female vocals ranging from the sensual to the sublime. 1998’s crossover electronica/rock breakthrough, Flux, possessed a more contemporary appeal than earlier efforts; the drum ‘n’ bass infused “Psyche” was even featured on the WB’s Dawson’s Creek. Enthused by the embrace of both his past fanbase and a newly growing listenership, Lum continued to evolve in a dance-oriented style, creating atmospheric jazz-step club tracks — including a remix of darkwave classic, “Bittersweet,” for Claire Voyant’s Time Again released through Metropolis Records.
By 1999, Lum was closely collaborating with new vocalist/songwriter, Anji Bee, under the condensed name Lovespirals. After a series of singles released on compilations such as Chill Out Lounge Vol. 2 and Chill Out in the City, Lovespirals changed gears and began seriously composing material for their first full-length album. Knowing that the album would be released on Projekt, who are known for darker ambient tinged offerings, Lum and Bee decided to hold back on their more upbeat compositions during song selection for their debut 2002 album, Windblown Kiss, focusing instead on darker, jazz-infused rock and folk tracks more in line with Robin Guthrie’s Violet Indiana and the Twin Peaks soundtracks by Angelo Badalamenti and Julie Cruise.
Fastforwarding to the present, Lovespirals are releasing their second album, Free & Easy, which includes lovingly completed versions of their previously unreleased dance songs, as well as a host of new tracks written between 2002 and 2004. With the freedom of launching their own label, Chillcuts, comes a celebration of high energy electronica tracks sprinkled amongst the moodier fare Lovespirals have come to be known for. From the bittersweet trip hop of the album single, “Love Survives” (featured in new webseries,The Strand), to the catchy deep house of “Trouble” (featured in E!’s Gastineau Girls), to the dark bluesy chill out of “Walk Away” (featured in the WB’s Popular DVD), Free & Easy, truly runs the gamut of downtempo sounds and styles. But Lovespirals could never be content writing only electronica; consider the mood masterpiece of the album, “Habitual,” with it’s soaring ethereal vocal harmonies and organic instrumentation.
Lovespirals’ first truly independent release is sure to surprise and delight their longtime fans, while attracting a new audience with it’s diverse range of genres graced by the smoothly sensual Lovespirals touch.
Lovespirals’ song “Walk Away” from their upcoming album Free & Easy is included on the recent Disney/Buena Vista release of the WB Network’s Popular: Season 2 DVD. The original mix of this slow burning bluesy number is included in Episode #38, entitled “Fag.” Lovespirals are happy to be included in a program that attempts to tackle prejudices of all kinds.
Lovespirals will be playing a show next month with The Flir and several opening bands. This is their first performance since the 2002 Tour. Ryan and Anji — along with special guest guitarist, Rodney Rodriguez — will be doing an all-new set composed mainly of tracks from their upcoming album, Free & Easy. Copies of “Windblown Kiss” will be on hand for sale, which the band will gladly autograph. Come on out and get a sneak peek at what Lovespirals have been up to the past few years!
April 14, 2005 at 14 Below 1348 14th Street, Santa Monica, CA 90401 14below.com
Cost: $7 ($6 w/ flyer) | 21+ with ID Doors open 8 pm The Flir go on at 9:30 and Lovespirals follow them at 10:30.
Don’t forget to download and print the official flyer for your discount.
JEN: Do you consider Lovespirals to be a continuation of Love Spirals Downwards or is it a totally separate creation?
RYAN: It’s a new band for sure. But on the other hand, I’m just doing my thing: making music. I never sat down and decided to make music in a way that wasn’t natural for me. I’m just doing what I’ve always done; making music that moves me, something that challenges me to grow musically, and something I’d want to listen to when it’s all done. With each album, I think I’ve been sucessful in being genre-less. That’s something I’ve pretty much always wanted to do; not be confined by the restrictions of making music that a certain kind of genre or following expects. I’m a free musical soul and I’ve always aimed at following my musical bliss. So older fans that got that from my music should still be just as pleased, if not more so, with Lovespirals. But if you liked my older music because you were a fan of the record label and their narrow genre and style, then you probably never really got what my music was about and won’t necessarily be into Lovespirals.
ANJI: This is a complicated question. You can look at it in different ways. Sam Rosenthal said that Lovespirals are to Love Spirals Downwards what Jefferson Starship are to Jefferson Airplane, or Pink Floyd are to The Pink Floyd Sound. In each case, a band member left and the name was shortened. Is it still the same band? Then again, Love Spirals Downwards were never really a band, per se, but a recording project headed up by Ryan. Of course, we don’t perform his old songs live, which fans would probably expect if they thought of us as being the “continuation of Love Spirals Downwards.”
We’ve nearly completed our next album, tentatively titled “Free & Easy.” So far we have 9 tracks recorded and mixed, totalling 48 minutes. You can hear mp3 clips on our newly updated audio page.
Our prior album, “Windblown Kiss,” is now available through iTunes. You can also buy a cut-out copy from us via CDBaby for the bargain price of just $8.99. http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/lovespirals
Last.fm is now offering a 192kbps mp3 download of our out-of-print “Ecstatic EP.” The 6 track EP is a whopping 40 minutes long. http://www.last.fm/music/Lovespirals
Anji contributed vocals and lyrics for 2 songs (“Smoke” & “Love Me, Leave Me”) on the brand new Bitstream Dream CD, “Integration.” http://www.bitstreamdream.com
I’ve been contacting local musicians to put together a live band for future Lovespirals gigs. This should be an exciting new development for the promotion of the next album!
Apple is now selling Lovespirals’ 2002 album, Windblown Kiss, and Love Spirals Downwards’ 2000 retrospective compilation, Temporal: A Collection of Music Past & Present, in their iTunes music store. You can purchase either individual songs or the entire album.
Pat Ogle has released the second volume of his new zine/CD series. Guest List:Precipice Vol. 2 features Lovespirals’ song “Love Survives,” alongside “rare, one of a kind unreleased, and out-take tracks” from Darling Kandie, Angela Bowie-Barnett, Thanatos, Buzz McCoy, Grove Mann, illegalteenagebikini, Queen Mary, mmnpltr, X-VoreteX, Dendron, Chris Connelly with William Tucker, Numb Ones, Prime Rib, Nikekka RPM, and Cinematik.
