Alt mag, Ray Gun, printed a small feature on Love Spirals Downwards with interview quotes from bandleader, Ryan Lum.

You can barely shoehorn all the lush/Lush, curvy/Curvey swirly music bands into a tour bus these days. Does the scene have enough room behind the Catherine Wheel for Cocteau Quads? Or will Love Spirals Downwards have to ride in the U-Haul?

Love Spirals Downwards, (Ryan Lum on instruments, Suzanne Perry on vocals), whose debut on Project Records, Idylls, swims on waves of guitars and airy, otherworldly vocals. And you’re meant to feel the lyrics, not understand them; as Lum puts it, “We really don’t want to say a whole lot as far as semantics or messages go. We’re more involved in this overall aesthetic picture, which is not necessarily determined by words and meaning and such.”

While you’ll hear a hint of Indo-British singer Sheila Chandra on Idylls, LSD’s most obvious influence is the Cocteau Twins. Lum admits that he and Perry were influenced by “mid- Eighties 4AD bands” like the Twins and This Mortal Coil, but good-naturedly rejects the comparison. “I really don’t think we sound like them, to be completely honest. I’m not in denial or self-deception,” he volunteers, reassuringly. “It’s my honest belief that if you listen to our music, we don’t sound like the Cocteau Twins.”

Well, okay, LSD does favor sustained evocative vocalizations (“Ah-h – ah – ah-h – h – h,” that sort of thing) over the nonsense syllables of the Cocteau Twins; Lum and Perry’s fondness for Indian classical music give Idylls a cosmopolitan sound, making it just right for, say, having Captain Picard over for a cup of Earl Grey, hot.

And Lum is not bothered if people use Idylls as background music. “For gluing airplanes together it might not be good,” he says, “but if you’re drinking tea, hanging out or whatever, that’s fine.” All he asks is that you give it “a good listen.”

by joe clark