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Band News

More ‘Long Way From Home’ Reviews

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Reviews are still popping up of Lovespirals’ recent album, Long Way From Home, in partial thanks to the efforts of Ariel PR who helped to push the album when it was released this past October 23rd.

Miles Klee said in Hot Indie News:

Bluesy slide guitar work sometimes shades over into Santana-like finger-meandering, and vocalist Anji Bee’s layered voice paints bright glaze over already dreamy arrangements. It’s as though the glancing disaffection of 80’s and 90’s dream-poppers has been filtered through an AM radio, a mutation that works by dint of sounding completely natural on an evolutionary view.

From the Green Arrow Radio blog:

More than melancholic music, there is a sense that they traveled with you on similar & familiar roads with the radio tuned to the same left of the dial station in the middle of wherever. After nearly a decade of artistic collaboration between singer/songwriter, Anji Bee, & multi instrumentalist & producer, Ryan Lum, it is no wonder that they have managed to put together an album of answers to questions yet asked with a subtle sultry sense of sound security.

The Celebrity Cafe‘s Ray Anderson mused:

Empty and sad, but of full of emotion, their album Long Way from Home is medicine for those that dig the alternative. How can you take a gut-wrenching classic like “Motherless Child” and make it sadder? Let the “Lovespirals” get a hold of it. It’s easy to fall into the loose, country-tinged groove of “Caught in a Groove” and let your soul be taken for a ride. By the time the “upbeat” “Lovelight” comes on, you won’t mind being “A Long Way from Home,” and I think you’ll want to stay there.

Review

Opus Zine Reviews Long Way From Home

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Jason Moore reviewed Lovespirals’ latest album, Long Way From Home, for his Opus Zine. You can read the full review on his website.

It doesn’t feel quite right to say that Lovespirals is merely the new incarnation of Love Spirals Downwards, even though it’s pretty obvious why folks (myself included) would say that — and not just because of the name similarities. While founder/songwriter Ryan Lum has largely eschewed the gothic/darkwave overtones of his previous band, there’s still no denying that the ghosts of acts such as the Cocteau Twins still haunt their way through Lovespirals’ Long Way From Home. One need only to listen to hazy guitar strums or shimmery effects on “Empty Universe,” “Treading The Water,” or “Sundrenched” for that to become readily apparent.

And then there’s Anji Bee’s vocals. Bee lets her voice drift and sway through the album’s ten tracks in a manner recalling Love Spirals Downwards’ previous vocalists (such as Suzanne Perry), Liz Frazier (minus the glossolalia), and even Tracey Thorn (Everything But The Girl). You know what I’m talking about: a manner that is seductive, not so much for its sultriness and smokiness, but for its ethereal and otherworldly nature.

All that being said, however, Long Way From Home is far more straightforward than anything Lum (and his various collaborators) has done to date — especially when compared to the Projekt days. While there are certainly echoes of those early darkwave records, replete with their Victorialand influences, Long Way From Home also blends in more forthright pop, jazz, Americana, and even blues for good measure. The duo pull the music off effortlessly, with Lum’s lush production and guitar effects providing a gorgeous, sunlit backdrop for Bee’s vocals.

Ultimately, Lum and Bee are all about creating a mood with their music, a relaxed and blissed-out vibe that should be no stranger to fans of dreampop, chill-out electronica, and atmospheric pop. This is music for both late night sessions and noon daydreams, for both listening to at work when you need to escape the pressure of the day and at home when you simply need to unwind with a good book and a glass of wine. From that perspective, Long Way From Home succeeds pretty well.

Audio, Interview

Lovespirals ‘Long Way From Home’ Feature Podcast

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In this extended episode of the Chillin’ with Lovespirals podcast, Ryan and Anji play every song from their Long Way From Home as they discuss how the album was created. In this special behind-the-scenes podcast, the duo discuss their new album’s influences, song writing process, and production secrets, while giving you great peek into the album!

You can subscribe to Chillin’ with Lovespirals on just about any podcast app including Apple, Spotify, Amazon, iHeart, Podcast Addict, Podchaser, Deezer, and JioSaavn. 

Continue reading Lovespirals ‘Long Way From Home’ Feature Podcast →
Band News, Review

Re:Gen Magazine Reviews Long Way From Home

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By Matthew Johnson

On their third album, Lovespirals shift away from overt electronica in favor of beautiful, understated folk and blues ballads.

If sophomore album Free and Easy saw Lovespirals’ sound at its biggest, Long Way from Home is the duo’s most intimate, forsaking house beats and jazz flourishes for understated slide guitar and acoustic strums. Ryan Lum’s production is more mature than ever before; unless you really listen for it, you won’t be able to tell that he plays and records all the instruments himself – maybe not even then – and the drums sound warm and clear, betraying no hint of sampler or sequencer. Instead, Lum lets his arrangements take center stage, with emotive guitar solos harmonizing with electric organ on the bluesy ballad “Once in a Blue Moon” and relaxed acoustic strums highlighting jazzy piano chords on “Nocturnal Daze.” Anji Bee’s vocals are beautifully languid, the sweetness swathed in melancholy on the plaintive “Caught in the Groove,” adorned by floating background harmonies on “Treading the Water,” and sensual yet dreary on the pair’s stark rendition of classic spiritual “Motherless Child.” Fans of the pair’s more overtly romantic material will appreciate unabashed love song “This Truth,” and there’s even a hint of the ethereal dreaminess of Lum’s previous project, Love Spirals Downwards, on the fuzzy overlapping guitar tones and meandering vocals of “Sundrenched” and “Lazy Love Days.”

It’s not an understatement to call Long Way from Home the duo’s most accomplished work up to date; as enjoyable as their previous explorations of laidback electronica and jazz fusion have been, this album captures Lum and Bee’s warm musical chemistry in a way that previous releases only hinted at.

View the original review at Re:Gen Magazine.

Band News

Music Tap Featured Artist for December

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Matt Rowe reviews Long Way From Home for Music Tap, 11/28/2007

The evolution of Lovespirals into the band that they are today has been a long road. From the band’s early years as Love Spirals Downwards — with a vocalist all-but-forgotten for Anji Bee’s lovely, dreamy, and expansive vocal pleasantries — to their current album, Lovespirals have always been a band of change. Their latest, the wonderfully titled Long Way From Home, is one of superior work and can easily rank as the band’s best work in either incarnation.

Still a part of the Dream-Pop sound that formed them, the Anji Bee years of Lovespirals have been an essential element for the band. With her ability to wrap around Ryan Lum’s musical explorations, Lovespirals is not afraid of trying on new clothes, framing them in gorgeous soft tones of various flavours. The album begins with a “career-best” blues song that accentuates the album’s direction. “Caught in the Groove” is a beautifully produced, dream-blues (if I may coin the phrase) song. Using a song as a metaphor for the deterioration of a relationship, this captivating tune is made all the more extraordinary by Lum’s blues guitar.

That same bluesy guitar shows up in “Once in a Blue Moon, and “Nocturnal Daze.” Ryan Lum’s guitar leads have a distinct ’70s feel throughout the album. Some songs recall the past musical history of the band. “Sundrenched” lends itself to the stream of that past. The album closes with the excellent musically and lyrically sex-soaked “Lazy Love Days.”

The needle may be “caught in the groove” but, for me, that’s a good thing where this album is concerned.

View the original post at MusicTap.net

Band News

Idylls Remastered Reissue #1 on Projekt.com!

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The Projekt.com Top 10 currently lists the brand new Love Spirals Downwards – Idylls Remastered Reissue at the #1 spot, followed closely by Love Spirals Downwards – Ardor Remastered Reissue at #3. Trailing slightly behind is the new Lovespirals – Long Way From Home (which was actually released by Chillcuts, not Projekt) at the #8 position and Lovespirals – Windblown Kiss — which Projekt released back in 2002 — at #9. With the #5, #6, and #10 albums being comps that include tracks by Love Spirals Downwards and Lovespirals, as well, I guess you could say that I’m pretty much dominating the Projekt charts this week!

Band News

Idylls Remastered Reissue on iTunes now!

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You can now purchase the brand new Idylls [Remastered Reissue] on iTunes. This 2007 version of Love Spirals Downwards’ classic 1992 debut album includes 3 bonus tracks; their first ever recorded song, a live acoustic recording, and an extended version of a song from an out-of-print compilation CD. Band founder, Ryan Lum, completely remastered the album from the original DATs to bring out more sonic clarity than ever before, and the artwork has been recreated from the original photographs for crystal clear images, as well. Watch for the Ardor [Remastered Reissue] on iTunes soon! This is a cooperative release between Projekt Records and Chillcuts Digital.

Interview

Re:Gen Magazine Interview Lovespirals

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The Golden Age of Chill by Re:Gen Magazine Assistant Editor, Matthew Johnson

For a band so enmeshed in ’70s-era recording aesthetics, Lovespirals’ Anji Bee and Ryan Lum are undeniably on the cutting edge of modern technology. Early adopters of podcasting technology, the pair are aligned with Adam Curry’s PodShow network as well as the nascent podsafe movement. They also recently made their virtual reality debut with a live show in the Second Life online community, and are eager about the Internet’s role in the music industry’s uncertain new era. Get them talking about the music itself, though, and it’s all about the warm sounds of ’70s records. Bee and Lum’s newest release, Long Way from Home, largely abandons the house and downtempo electronic currents of previous releases Windblown Kiss and Free and Easy — not to mention the ambient drum ‘n’ bass predilections Lum explored with his previous project, top-selling Projekt act Love Spirals Downwards — in favor of a more acoustic approach. If the technology is less overt, however, it’s no less an integral part of Lovespirals’ music. As Lum and Bee explain to ReGen, it takes a lot of technique to produce an album on ProTools that sounds like it was recorded in the days of Miles Davis and John Coltrane. Lum also tells us about revisiting his early work by remastering new editions of Love Spirals Downwards’ first two albums, Idylls and Ardor, and Bee talks about keeping things real in the age of Auto-Tune.

Let’s start by talking about your new album, Long Way from Home. The electronic elements are a lot more understated than on Free and Easy. Was there a conscious decision to step away from electronica to focus on more traditional instruments?

Lum: Big time! There’s really no electronics, unless you count the Rhodes piano. I think three or four songs have Rhodes, some a lot of Rhodes, some just a little bit. I don’t know if that makes it electronica. I just see it as a popular ’70s instrument that got re-popularized.
Bee: Bands like Zero 7 and Air have really re-popularized Rhodes, so it’s easy to think of Rhodes as being an electronica thing. I’m happy to let it slide; if we’re considered ‘downtempo’ because of the Rhodes, that’s fine. We did basically record the same way as Free and Easy; we used ProTools, and the drums are not real drums.
Lum: It may not sound like it, but I’m using all the production techniques I’ve learned over the years, making Free and Easy, or before that making drum ‘n’ bass or house or whatever. We’re using the same techniques, but we’re trying to make more acoustic records with the same gear.
Bee: It’s like we’re disguising the techniques.
Lum: You can make a drum machine sound all electronic, but we’re trying to make it sound as human as possible. In fact, I’m hoping you can’t even tell it’s not a real guy playing a real drum.

Continue reading Re:Gen Magazine Interview Lovespirals →