Love Spirals Downwards Biography

Love Spirals Downward (LSD for short) formed in Los Angeles in 1991 when guitarist, keyboardist, and composer Ryan Lum asked Suzanne Perry to record vocals over some music he had written. The positive results led to a recorded demo, and by late 1992, the duo released their first album, Idylls, on the ethereal Projekt label. Their debut maintained a strong Cocteau Twins vibe, but they differed from that group by virtue of Perry’s distinct vocal style and a dreamier, folksier sound that manifested itself on subsequent releases, each of which have shown LSD more strongly defining their personal style, slowly but gradually stripping away the processing and becoming more acoustically based. In fact, their sporadic North American shows have generally featured Lum on acoustic guitar and Perry singing. Ever shows them experimenting with modern electronica, also evidenced by an ethereal drum’n’bass tune performed at the 1997 Projekt Festival in Chicago. Flux followed in 1998. Throughout their career, the duo have maintained a strong following among the goth set, even though their audiences are far more varied than that. Ethereal folk is the best way to describe them, for they fit neither the image nor the dark mood of the gothic genre, although their occasional melancholic edge does explain the connection. By the new millennium, Lum started the Lovespirals project with singer/songwriter Anji Bee on vocals. Lovespirals issued Windblown Kiss in summer 2002. — by Bryan Reeseman, All Music Guide

The All Music Guide (AMG) biography of Love Spirals Downwards provides a general overview of the band’s history, tracing their evolution from their 1992 debut Idylls to their final studio album Flux (1998) and the later Lovespirals project. However, the biography makes several broad claims about the band’s stylistic shifts—some of which warrant closer examination. Does Ever really mark their first experiment with modern electronica? Did their sound truly move from heavy processing to a more acoustic-based approach? And is “ethereal folk” the best way to describe them? Let’s analyze their discography and documented history to find out.

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.”