Following a four-year stretch of relative quiet after their 2018 full-length, Life Goes On, Lovespirals began a new chapter defined not by albums but by a steady stream of single releases. Though longtime fans had grown accustomed to immersive LP experiences, the shift to singles wasn’t sudden—it had been quietly brewing.
The 3-song Smile – Single (2022) hinted at a leaner, more experimental approach, serving as a bridge between Life Goes On and their new singles-focused strategy. As Ryan and Anji Lum explained on their relaunched podcast—now reborn as the Chillin’ with Lovespirals video edition—this model gave them the freedom to explore ideas in real time, without waiting to complete a full album arc. Each song became its own dream soaked world.
Equally important was their fiercely independent process: the duo wrote, recorded, mixed, and mastered everything themselves. Anji handled lyrics, vocals, co-production, and album art design—often using their own photography or collaborating with a small circle of trusted friends like photographer Susan Jennings or painter Tom Pathe. Ryan took the reins on composition, instrumentation, production, mixing, and mastering. This DIY ethic gave each release a deeply personal and cohesive feel—music and visuals growing from the same creative soil.
Alongside each new single came music videos or lyric videos, podcast commentary, and cross-platform content designed to build a more interactive relationship with listeners. In this new era, Lovespirals weren’t just releasing songs—they were opening windows into their process, one track at a time.
Lovespirals talked about the switch from releasing albums to singles on Chillin’ with Lovespirals Episode 93 (2024):
Ryan: “I like this kind of regular release thing instead of making people wait two years or whatever for an album. It’s stupid.”
Anji: “There’s something called ‘waterfall’ where you release a single, then another single, and when the album comes out, they’ll take those singles down, but you still retain all the plays and playlisting. So we might try the waterfall method. We’re just trying to learn…everything is so different with music these days.”
Singles Era (2022–2025): A Period of Experimentation and Evolution
Lovespirals’ embrace of singles marked a turning point—not just in release format, but in emotional depth, sonic range, and visual storytelling. Each track in this era stood alone—fully realized with cover art, music videos, and podcast commentary—allowing Ryan and Anji Lum to take listeners on intimate journeys, one song at a time.
As Ryan noted on Chillin’ with Lovespirals Episode 92:
“We go into the future too, guys. We’re not just stuck in the past. 2024 has been a very big musical year for Lovespirals —Noumenon, the drum & bass remix, Not Myself. We finally finished another song for 2024, just in time for the end of the year.”
The Call (July 2022)
A dreamy reentry into the music scene, The Call channels the spirit of ‘90s shoegaze with lush, layered guitar textures and haunting harmonies. Ryan’s instrumentation swells around the refrain “I can’t answer your call / Can’t afford to take the fall,” evoking emotional vulnerability and guarded introspection. It’s a moody, cinematic track that set the tone for the singles era.
The video, filmed and edited by Anji in and around their hometown of Long Beach, CA, captures a series of glowing sunset shots from oceanfronts to Signal Hill—bringing the song’s longing to life through natural beauty and solitude.
Lonely Sunset (September 2022)
Lonely Sunset pivots into chill house, a vibrant contrast to its predecessor’s shoegaze palette. Breezy yet bittersweet, it recalls the late-night energy of Anji Bee’s earlier solo work, layered with sophisticated production and dreamy vocals. The melodic hooks and mellow beats create a nostalgic atmosphere that feels both intimate and danceable—making it the perfect soundtrack for summer’s end.
Visually, the song is brought to life through a music video that follows Anji wandering through Las Vegas—from daytime desert stillness to the glowing chaos of neon nightlife. The video even captures a spontaneous dance at the Beauty Bar in Fremont, perfectly matching the song’s low-key sense of emotional release.
Noumenon (June 2024)
With Noumenon, the duo dives into a darker palette of atmospheric electronica layered with trap beats, ambient textures, and haunting guitar work. Anji’s vocals float with a blend of sensuality and detachment, delivering the repeated line, “Love is just a noumenon”—a philosophical reference to the unknowable nature of reality. The song captures themes of isolation, disillusionment, and emotional fatigue.
“We were so proud of Noumenon,” Anji said. “We were like, ‘We’re never going to do as well as Noumenon.’”
“It did so well,” Ryan added. “I was so impressed how many plays and playlists it got added to.”
The music video intercuts dimly lit studio footage of the band with surreal light photography used in the single’s cover art—blurring the lines between the emotional and the abstract. The Drum & Bass Mix, released as a Bandcamp exclusive, comes with a recut version of the video to match the new arrangement’s tempo and rhythm.
The Noumenon single was expanded in July 2024 with a Bandcamp-exclusive release that included the drum n bass remix plus a meditative instrumental guitar version—demonstrating their continued play with genre and format.
Not Myself (October 2024)
A return to early 2000s chillout stylings, Not Myself blends soft beats, ambient layers, and lightly jazzy guitar with minimalist lyrics that loop like a meditative mantra: “I don’t know who I am / But I know I’m not myself.” It’s a gentle but haunting exploration of identity, dissociation, and seasonal melancholy.
“You know, I’m really pleasantly surprised to see that it’s doing well on Spotify’“ Anji noted of ‘Not Myself.’
“I think people just like our retro vibes, you know?” Ryan posited.
“Different kinds of retro vibes,” Anji added.
The album art—an Art Nouveau-style field of golden-orange flowers accented with turquoise—mirrors the dreamy warmth of the music. The video, filmed at sunset along the bluffs of Crystal Cove, features Anji walking among yellow fields, aligning nature’s quiet transformation with the track’s introspective mood.
Used to Be (November 2024)
A deeply emotive track, Used to Be fuses 90s-inspired dream pop and electronica with ghostly vocals and cinematic flair. Ryan combines atmospheric textures, acoustic strums, and a goth-tinged guitar hook that builds to an epic solo—closing the song with emotive resonance. Anji’s vocal performance is a masterclass in contrast: grounded yet ethereal, reserved yet revealing. Lyrically, it explores solitude and the passage of time: “Life returned to how it used to be / Days filled with nothing and nobody.”
The duo described the track on Chillin’ with Lovespirals:
“It’s kind of like Noumenon a little bit,” Ryan said. “It’s off in that sad, beautiful direction, but it’s got some dark haunting piano—kind of like Not Myself.”
Anji added: “It does kind of have a little bit of elements of both, and it wouldn’t sound out of place either with our song The Call.”
“It ends with this really crazy, awesome, epic guitar solo,” Ryan said. “So all you dream pop, shoegazer fans should check it out!”
“We’re so proud of this song, Like the more I heard it, the more I love it.” Anji gushed.
The song’s visualizer lyric video features colorful, swirling light animations—derived from the same visuals used for the single’s cover art. As the lights morph in dreamlike fashion, the lyrics appear on screen, reinforcing the hypnotic introspection of the song.
The Call (VIP Mix) (March 2025)
The 2025 VIP Mix of The Call reimagines the original track with a denser soundscape, sharper mixing, and richer vocal harmonies. “VIP” (Variance in Production) is a term borrowed from EDM and DJ culture, signaling a personal remix of an artist’s own work.
“Even though our music doesn’t sound very EDM,” Ryan said, “we use a lot of electronic music production techniques.”
“The 2025 mix, to me, is more lush, more immersive,” Anji explained. “The guitars are bigger and bolder, and the vocals are way more like ahhh. I went in and got all those vocals I recorded in 2022 and went to town.”
“It took a song I was kind of ‘meh’ about,” Ryan added, “and turned it into something I’m really proud of.”
With a driving guitar hook, spacey synths, and a melancholic undercurrent, the new mix channels The Cure and early 4AD influences while pushing the track into more immersive territory. The visualizer lyric video features a vintage 90s photograph by longtime Projekt collaborator Susan Jennings, animated with slow, dreamlike motion. The cover artwork—slightly different crops for the 2022 original and 2025 remix—adds a nostalgic continuity to the track’s transformation.
In the last episode of Chillin’ with Lovespirals for 2024, Lum shared the band’s future plans,
“We have a whole bunch of songs that we’ve been working on over the past year that are in various stages of completion. Plus I want to make some brand new songs from scratch.” Anji added, “As long as things don’t get too crazy in our lives, we’re going to keep putting music out regularly.”
Confession and Catharsis: Lyrical Themes in the Singles Era
Anji Bee’s lyrics in this era reveal a growing intimacy and emotional rawness, often shaped by solitude, longing, and introspection. Across singles like Lonely Sunset, The Call, Noumenon, Not Myself, and Used to Be, a throughline emerges: the quiet ache of disconnection, self-examination, and the search for meaning.
The Call captures emotional hesitation. The speaker resists vulnerability with lines like “I can’t answer your call / Can’t afford to take the fall,” reflecting a push-pull between desire and self-protection.
In Lonely Sunset, Anji explores the lingering weight of lost love. Lines like “Everywhere I go I still search for you / Haunting all the places that we once knew” and “Never find another love that’s half as true” evoke a restless longing that blends nostalgia with heartache.
Noumenon dives into existential territory. The recurring phrase “Love is just a noumenon” suggests a philosophical detachment—love as an abstract, unreachable idea. The verses expose emotional burnout and the numbness of routine: “Every day I wake up tired / Only do what is required / My emotions have been mired / So completely uninspired.”
In Not Myself, identity becomes elusive. Repetitive and fragmented, the lyrics mirror a dissociative state: “I don’t know, I don’t know who I am / But I know I’m not myself.” The effect is both meditative and haunting.
Used to Be returns to solitude, with lines like “Life returned to how it used to be / Days filled with nothing and nobody.” The song paints isolation as both a burden and a refuge—building walls, retreating from the world, and relying on no one but the self.
Together, these songs mark a shift toward vulnerability and self-inquiry. Anji’s writing feels less about storytelling and more like confessions in motion—raw, repetitive, and emotionally unfiltered. This lyrical minimalism fits the singles format well, where each track becomes its own focused emotional snapshot.
Between these releases, the duo also found time to revisit past collaborations and deepen their connection with listeners through their newly revived podcast, which became a hub for creative reflection.
Revisiting the Past and Collaborating with Others
Beyond their original singles, Lovespirals have also engaged in other notable one-off projects. On August 11, 2023, they released a brand new recording of the Love Spirals Downwards song, “I’ll Always Love You,” as part of the 25th-anniversary remastered and expanded Deluxe edition of Flux. They renamed the song “Misunderstood” to better align with its sole, repeated lyric.
The duo also contributed a reimagined version of Alan Elettronico’s song, “This Ain’t Love,” for the 2023 Projekt Records deluxe edition of his album, Electric Mind. Featuring Ryan’s signature guitar work and Anji’s captivating vocals alongside elements from the original track, the Lovespirals Remix was chosen as the album’s lead single on both Spotify and Bandcamp.
A few years earlier they participated in Projekt Records’ 2020 compilation Tim, where are you now?, a tribute album for Timothy Leary’s 100th birthday, contributing the tracks “Starseed” and “PSY PHI love means High Fidelity.”
Chillin’ with Lovespirals: A Chronicle of Change
Originally launched in 2005 as one of the first music-related podcasts, Chillin’ with Lovespirals chronicled the progression of the band though 2011, when the band shifted focus to YouTube and social media. The show returned briefly in 2018 in video format to promote Life Goes On, before fading again. Chillin’ with Lovespirals made its full comeback in 2023—this time in both video and audio formats, and newly available on Spotify, as well as Apple Podcasts, Amazon, iHeart Radio, and other platforms. Clips on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok brought the show to a wider, more engaged audience.
“We keep existing through time and times are changing,” Ryan reflected. “Music technology, internet technology, how to distribute our music… it’s all evolved.”
“So now, not only is the show available on YouTube, it’s on all these other platforms,” Anji added. “Go back and listen to the old episodes. I found it fascinating—hearing about how we felt about things as they were developing.”
Their back-and-forth is part reflection, part time capsule, and part masterclass in DIY music creation. With dry humor and genuine openness, they chronicle not only how the music gets made—but why it still matters. As they shared more of their creative world, the need to simplify how their music was presented to the world became increasingly clear.
Bringing Fans into the Creative Process
Lovespirals don’t just release music—they talk openly about how and why they make it, building a personal connection with fans along the way. On their Chillin’ with Lovespirals podcast, Anji and Ryan reflect on their creative process, production choices, and even the challenges of distribution with a mix of honesty and humor.
They share how personal the music feels during production. As Ryan put it, “When we’re working on a song here, it’s very private, very personal. It’s something that belongs to us and no one else has even got a whiff of it.” Releasing a track means letting go of something intimate—and hoping it resonates.
There’s excitement when it does. Anji said of the fan response to Used to Be, “Some of you have said, ‘It’s going to be another banger!’ and stuff like that, so that made me so excited to know that you guys were excited to hear it, because we’re so excited to share new music with you.”
They give shoutouts to indie radio stations like Big Sonic Heaven, Soma FM, and Eardrum Buzz Radio, as well as appreciation to fans who add songs to playlists. Ryan noted, “They usually get added to over a thousand playlists on Spotify. That’s totally awesome.” Anji added, “It’s just so great that the music is actually reaching people’s ears… we hope that you guys can hear it and maybe fall in love with it too.”
Keeping fans in the loop on upcoming projects is a big part of each episode. Looking ahead, Ryan shared hopes for more music and videos in the near future: “We should make some more new music videos proper next year. We have a whole bunch of songs that we’ve been working on over the past year that are in various stages of completion. We need to go reevaluate them. Plus I want to make some brand new songs from scratch.”
He added, “I imagine 2025 kind of being like the latter half of this year, where we’re regularly releasing songs on a periodic basis, on a near monthly basis, you know? Earlier in the podcast this year I said, ‘No, I don’t think we can do that,’ but what we have going on right now with all our projects, I think we can do it.” Anji agreed: “As long as things don’t get too crazy in our lives. We’re going to try to keep putting music out regularly.”
This kind of transparency—equal parts passion, vulnerability, and fan gratitude—helps demystify the artist-fan divide. For Lovespirals, the singles aren’t just songs. They’re moments of connection, shaped not only by what they make, but by how they share it.
A Return to the Original Name
In early 2025, a seemingly symbolic move took on real-world urgency: the duo began releasing music under their original moniker, Love Spirals Downwards. What started as a reflection of continuity soon became a workaround to deal with modern streaming platform restrictions.
As Ryan explained during a Happy Healthy Vegan livestream:
“It’s been kind of a pain in the ass to have two separate ‘bands’ when it’s just… me. I’ve been doing the same stuff continuously since 1990, basically. I haven’t stopped. We’re trying to figure out a way to bring it all in so it’s not split up.
The shift, initially motivated by Apple Music’s rejection of the Used to Be release due to naming conventions forced them to rebrand under the original title on all major platforms.
“They wouldn’t even allow ‘Lovespirals’ on the artwork,” Anji explained on Chillin’ with Lovespirals. “It’s been a nightmare.”
Though unintended, the outcome unified their catalog under a single name—bridging past and present while solving a practical challenge. For longtime fans, it felt like a full-circle moment. For Ryan, it was simply the truth:
“I’ve been doing the same thing the whole time.”
This return to their original name resonated with longtime fans, some of whom were just discovering Lovespirals’ newer material. As Bandcamp user, AJ Hughes, said of the “Noumenon” single:
“Not having followed Ryan Lum’s continuation as Lovespirals, my interest piqued when Noumenon was added to the LSD collection. Seems to draw from the beautiful pedigree of Flux, updating the sound while easing up on the icy atmosphere. Lum’s songwriting abilities have sharpened in the interim. Excited to explore what I have been missing.”
With a single name and a renewed creative rhythm, Lovespirals—now Love Spirals Downwards again—step forward into a flexible future.
A Flexible Future
Lovespirals’ embrace of the digital singles format marks a new and dynamic chapter in their musical journey. This approach offers greater creative freedom, allowing them to explore diverse genres and release music more spontaneously. As they continue to release new singles and revive their legacy under a unified name, it will be exciting to see how this evolving strategy shapes their connection with longtime fans and new listeners alike.