SHORTTAKES LOVE SPIRALS DOWNWARDS
By R. Rusvic
“You know how when you’re a kid and you get out of the swimming pool? This tea smells like that,” explains Suzanne Perry, LSD’s vocalist. She passes the cup to guitarist, Ryan Lum, and then onto myself and we agree, amazed at the purity of her asseement. We’ve gathered in the duo’s comfortable Westside apartment to discuss the release of ‘Ardor,’ their second full length record. Nearly two years have passed since the band’s debut, ‘Idylls,’ and the band has progressed admirably. One thing that strikes the listener as different is an ongoing sense of unity within ’Ardor,’ an intangible, um, concept.
“It dawned on me as I was finishing the album that the way I was mixing the song somehow tied them all together,” says Ryan.
“It has more of a sense of worldliness than the previous record,” reveals Suzanne. “When I was singing, I tried to be more personable.”
Fans of the duo’s ornate and esoteric sound need not fear an abrupt change, the “Paradise Found” meshing of guitars, samplers, and Perry’s otherworldly voice is back in spades. But Perry’s previous reliance on indecipherable lyrics in make-believe tongues has faded, with real live English being used to dramatic effect in several instances.
“I felt that making nonsense lyrics was going to be a redundant experience,” Suzanne explains. “We did do a couple of songs that way and it worked well, but it was more natural to use the lyrics that I used.”
Like many bands on the Projekt label, Love Spirals Downwards is essentially a studio beast, but this too may be changing as the group ventures out of their apartment this summer for a few isolated dates with labelmate Lycia. Are beer endorsements next?
“We had this one person from Paris write to us; to this day we don’t know if they are male or female,” claims Ryan.
“It wrote like a ‘she,’” corrects Suzanne. “We wrote back to her/him; I think it’s a her, the writing was flowing. She/he wanted us to send him/her some acid. They were asking us in French code: ‘SEND US SOME TABS,’ or something.”
“Inside the ’50 Years of Sunshine’ compilation, there’s a listing for Love Spirals Downwards that says ‘LSD Contact Address.’” notes Ryan. “Someone who doesn’t know English too well could find themselves confused…”
NOTE: this article pulls quotes from an interview with Jon Gonzalez recorded for an official Projekt Records PR cassette. Band portrait by Pieter Lessing.