Few bands in the ethereal wave and dream pop genres have sparked as much debate over their influences as Love Spirals Downwards. As a flagship act on Projekt Records, the California duo of Ryan Lum and Suzanne Perry blended lush, reverb-drenched guitars with angelic female vocals, a combination that immediately drew comparisons to the Cocteau Twins—arguably the defining act of the genre.
But were Love Spirals Downwards merely imitators, or did they carve out their own space within the dreamlike, atmospheric soundscape they inhabited? The answer is more complex than the simple label of “Cocteau Twins clone.”
Signing to Projekt: An Uncertain Beginning
Love Spirals Downwards’ journey began in the early 1990s when they submitted a demo to Projekt Records, a label known for its darkwave, ambient, and ethereal acts. Initially, Projekt founder Sam Rosenthal was hesitant to sign them, fearing they sounded too much like the Cocteau Twins. However, after encouragement from photographer Susan Jennings, the label took a chance on the duo.
In Carpe Noctem (1995), Lum recalled:
“The way it goes, her liked it but was fearful that we sounded too much like the Cocteau Twins, but Susan convinced him otherwise.”
After appearing on Projekt’s From Across This Gray Land 3 compilation, Love Spirals Downwards were officially signed. As their music reached a broader audience, so did the inevitable comparisons to Elizabeth Fraser and Robin Guthrie, despite the band’s own insistence that they were drawing from a variety of influences.
Shared Ethereal Language: Vocals & Lyrics
One of the most immediate reasons for the Cocteau Twins comparisons was Suzanne Perry’s voice. While Fraser is famous for her cryptic, sometimes nonsensical “glossolalia”—a form of lyrical abstraction where meaning takes a backseat to the sound of the words—Suzanne Perry also leaned toward poetic, evocative, and often emotionally ambiguous lyrics.
In The Ninth Wave: A Journal of Nocturnal Culture (#5, 1995), Perry explained her reluctance to make her lyrics too clear, referencing how she felt about Cocteau Twins’ shift toward intelligible lyrics on their later albums:
“There is more English on Ardor, but I don’t want to do a ‘Cocteau Twins.’ On their last record you can finally understand what she’s saying, but it’s so disappointing. There’s this beautiful, transcendent music, and her singing about being molested ruins the whole thing for me. It brought them down to earth, in my mind.”
Music critics frequently highlighted the similarities between Fraser and Perry. In Carpe Noctem (1995), Aaron Johnston wrote:
“Suzanne’s voice scaled through unnatural tones effortlessly down Ryan’s intricately etched paths of shaded beauty, culminating in a sound long forgotten from the youth of the so-called ethereal masters, the Cocteau Twins.”
Jason Moore of Opus Zine (2009) echoed this sentiment:
“Suzanne Perry’s gorgeous voice echoes Elizabeth Fraser’s gossamery glossolalia.”
However, Perry herself resented these comparisons. In AS IF (1993), she admitted:
“We get a lot of people who insist that we sound like the Cocteau Twins. I hate questions and comments relating to that!”
Lum, too, felt that comparisons to Fraser were sometimes exaggerated, telling Outburn (#8, 1999):
“I don’t think she’s influenced by other people, not even people she likes. She’s just singing from herself… she’s just being herself.”
Indeed, Perry never considered herself a vocalist who consciously mimicked influences. In a 1997 interview with KUCI 88.9 FM, Perry addressed this question directly:
“Tori Amos, Dead Can Dance… I used to like the Cocteau Twins. But I don’t know if I have ‘influences.’ When I listen to something, I don’t think, ‘How will this influence me?’ Definitely I have things that I listen to, because I like music, but a lot of people pick out a vocalist and try to sound like them. When you say ‘influences’ to me, that’s what I think of.”
Guitar Playing: Lush, Textured & Layered
Ryan Lum’s guitar work, often layered in reverb and delay, was another reason for the frequent comparisons to the Cocteau Twins. Like Guthrie, he used effects not just for texture but as a fundamental part of the composition, creating shimmering soundscapes rather than traditional chord structures.
Opus Zine (2009) recognized these similarities, writing:
“Ryan Lum’s guitars create the same sort of jaw-droppingly gorgeous soundscapes as those produced by Robin Guthrie.”
However, Lum’s playing also reflected influences beyond Guthrie. In Fond Affexxions (1993), he recalled:
“I remember discovering Cocteau Twins when Love’s Easy Tears came out, I guess in like ’86 or ’87, and then going back and hearing Victorialand. It was so fresh back then, and knowing that they were putting out this good stuff and 4AD was in its ‘Golden Age,’ and everything was so magnificent. I started finding all the Harold Budd, Brian Eno stuff I liked, Dead Can Dance, Cocteaus… Before that I liked some of The Cure stuff, their first three or four albums.”
Despite these varied inspirations, comparisons to Guthrie persisted. In The Ninth Wave (1995), Lum expressed his frustration:
“One review I saw compared us to the Cocteau Twins, circa Garlands album. I know they have to compare us to something, but how about Slowdive, or something not so obvious.”
Lum also felt that critics often lacked a deeper understanding of the ethereal genre and defaulted to Cocteau Twins comparisons simply because they were the most recognizable name. He expanded on this frustration in AS IF (1993):
“They show a lack of familiarity of the genre of music we’re in. I mean, there’s not enough bands around now in this genre that it could really be given a general name. There are bands that do this type of music, of course – say, for instance, Dead Can Dance, Cocteau Twins, Lush, to name a few. If you make this genre of music, a lot of times you get called a “Cocteau Twins band,” simply because they’re one of the biggest bands, if not the biggest band, of this style of music.”
In Raygun Magazine (June/July 1992), Lum was even more blunt:
“I really don’t think we sound like them, to be completely honest. I’m not in denial or self-deception, it’s my honest belief that if you listen to our music, we don’t sound like the Cocteau Twins.”
Beyond the Ethereal Template: LSD’s Evolution
Their debut album Idylls (1992) stands as a testament to LSD’s early ethereal wave sound—a lush, atmospheric blend of Perry’s ethereal vocals and Lum’s reverb-drenched guitar. Yet even here, their influences went beyond the Cocteau Twins. In the band’s first-ever interview, published in The Altered Mind (1992), Perry mentioned that the do attend Indian concerts at Occidental College. Lum elaborated further:
“We always try to look for really percussive bands, for lack of a better term, or ones that have really strange sounding string instruments, or ones that have nice vocals for [Suzanne] to listen to.”
Ryan reflected on these early experiences again in Isolation (1993):
“I remember how blown away I was the first time I saw an Indian sitar/tabala/tan pura performance. To put it into somewhat understandable terms, the music took everyone on the same ‘trip’. It was impossible to be there experiencing the performance and not have your consciousness taken on a journey by the power of the music.”
This appreciation for Indian classical music and unique instrumentation informed the duo’s compositional style on Idylls, contributing to its distinctive, meditative quality. The references to Varuna, Vishnu, Balarama, Ugrasena, and Vasudeva in “Dead Language,” all point to Perry having been influenced by these experiences as well.
By Ever (1996), Love Spirals Downwards had begun incorporating folk, ambient electronica, and looping psychedelic textures. Lum’s favorite albums of 1996 reflected his expanding sonic interests:
- Red House Painters – Songs For A Blue Guitar
- Mojave 3 – Ask Me Tomorrow
- Everything But the Girl – Walking Wounded
- LTJ Bukem – Logical Progression (V/A Compilation)
- Perfume Tree – A Lifetime Away
- Red House Painters – Songs For A Blue Guitar
Lum described the Ever album as genre-defying in Acoustic Guitar Magazine (1997):
“One thing I like about our new album is that it’s almost impossible to categorize with any of the conventional musical categories. There are really folky songs, really electronic ambient dance songs, and then these weird, loopy psychedelic songs.”
With Flux (1998), the band fully embraced electronic experimentation, and Lum’s favorite albums of 1998 demonstrated this shift:
- Massive Attack – Mezzanine
- Air – Moon Safari
- Perfume Tree – Feeler
- V/A – LTJ Bukem Presents Earth, Vol. 3
- V/A – Soundtrack from the movie Pi
Lum explained how his discovery of the Good Looking Records compilation Logical Progression led to this transformation in Fix Magazine (#24, 1998):
“It was beautiful and ethereal and pretty as anything I’ve ever listened to, like the Cocteau Twins, and yet it was definitely electronic music. It’s the perfect fusion of beauty and bliss and electronica. That was an inspiration.”
In an interview with Losing Today (September 1999), Lum reflected on his constant evolution as a musician:
“I think the biggest factor, or reason, why I change my sound all the time is because I’m always changing as a person. The change between the albums is a reflection of the change in me, or Suzanne and myself, over that time. I don’t listen to the same stuff forever. I always buy new records and I’m always going out and doing different things. The music is just a reflection of that.”
In Outburn (1999), Lum reflected on how these shifts in sound were deliberate:
“All the albums have a different sound… at least that’s the goal. You don’t want to make the same album consecutively again, that would be quite boring for us. I’m sure it would bore a lot of listeners, too.”
A Linked Legacy: Shared Musical Spaces
Regardless of their artistic evolution, Love Spirals Downwards and the Cocteau Twins remain intertwined in the minds of listeners and music curators alike. Love Spirals Downwards’ track “Madras” was selected for the iTunes Essentials: Shoegaze & Beyond playlist, released in 2006, appearing alongside Cocteau Twins, My Bloody Valentine, Slowdive, and Lush—reinforcing their presence within the dream pop and shoegaze movements.
They also shared space on multiple compilation albums. Splashed With Many a Speck, released by Dewdrops Records in 1997, featured Love Spirals Downwards’ “Delta” alongside Cocteau Twins, Closedown, Faith & Disease, Lovesliescrushing, and others. Additionally, Darkwave: Music of the Shadows Vol. 2, released by K-Tel in 2000, included Love Spirals Downwards’ “Forgo” alongside Cocteau Twins, Lycia, and Miranda Sex Garden.
Most notably, the Cherry Stars Collide – Dream Pop, Shoegaze & Ethereal Rock 1986-1995 box set, released in 2023, featured Love Spirals Downwards’ song “Stir About The Stars” alongside Cocteau Twins, Dead Can Dance, Slowdive, Bel Canto, and Lush. This collection solidified their place among the pioneers of ethereal music, further proving their stylistic connection to the Cocteau Twins while also acknowledging their unique contribution to the genre.
Critic & Fan Reception: Clone or Evolution?
Critics have been divided in their assessments. Some, like Willamette Weekly (2002), dismissed Love Spirals Downwards as a “perfectly listenable Cocteau Twins clone.” Others, like All Music Guide, noted that while their debut album “maintained a strong Cocteau Twins vibe,” later releases “showed LSD more strongly defining their personal style.”
The Ectophiles Guide to Good Music defended them against accusations of mimicry, stating, “They are not just Cocteau Twins wannabes (any more than Mozart was a Bach wannabe).” Opus Zine (2009) acknowledged the similarities, writing, “Let’s get the obvious out of the way: the Cocteau Twins are Idylls’ most obvious point of reference, particularly Treasure and Victorialand,” but noted that Lum and Perry had developed their own distinct voice. Music critic, Ned Raggett, made the same assessment in Mean Streets (1998):
“Over the course of three albums, LSD have explored the combination of beautiful female vocals and treated guitar that acts such as the Cocteau Twins and early Seefeel. However, LSD have rapidly created their own distinct sound.”
Some comparisons, however, were more flattering. Tear Down the Sky (1993) went so far as to say that Idylls was “better than anything the Cocteau Twins have done since Lullabies,” while Post-Punk (2018) listed Flux as one of the essential dream pop releases for its innovative blend of ethereal sounds with electronic beats noting:
“While the band’s earlier Projekt releases stayed firmly within the subgenre’s melody-centered Cocteau Twins-influenced template, ‘Flux’ incorporated skittering, downtempo, trip hop and drum and bass rhythmic elements, oddly rendering their music even more intoxicating and opaque.”
Conclusion: More Than an Imitation
Perhaps the most telling indication of Lum’s admiration for the Cocteau Twins came in 2012, when he contributed an essay to The First Time I Heard Cocteau Twins, a book compiled and edited by Scott Heim, author of Mysterious Skin. His inclusion in the anthology underscores the profound impact that the Cocteau Twins had on his musical journey.
Still, during the band’s active years, the members grew weary of the constant comparisons. A journalist for B-Sides (1995) remarked:
“Suzanne and Ryan roll their eyes at the mention of the Cocteau Twins comparisons.”
Lum followed up with a direct response:
“They’re certainly an influence, but if we felt what we were doing sounded so much like the Cocteau Twins, there would be no reason for doing Love Spirals Downwards.”
The Cocteau Twins may have been an early inspiration, but Love Spirals Downwards proved they were more than just an echo of their predecessors—they were undeniably a voice all their own.
(OpenAI assisted article)