Category Archives: Band News

Hello!

Hello. This is Ryan of Love Spirals Downwards. This is the first band info message from us on our webpage. I plan to update this every 2 or 3 months, or whenever there’s new information.

We’ve had lots of things happening with us lately including a show in Mexico City at the very beautiful Museo Universitario del Chopo on February 29. We spent a wonderful week in Mexico making many new friends and seeing some truly fantastic sights such as the pyramids at Teotihuacan (we climbed to the top of the Pyramid of the Sun), as well as eating some of the best food in our lives.

We haven’t even begun to think about new tours yet but some shows may happen later this year. One upcoming scheduled performance is the Projekt Festival in Chicago. It is a two-evening event that will include nearly all of Projekt’s current recording line-up. We will supposedly be closing the first night on June 25. For more information on this call the Projekt info-line at (312) 491-0108.

Mean Street Vol. 8, #4 (1996)

Article by Ned Ragget

For Ryan Lum, instrumentalist for the L.A.based duo, Love Spirals Downwards, sticking t just one means of musical expression is not an option.

“I go between making this pure acoustic music and then going into this analog synthesizer, drum machine sound, tweaking knobs and stuff — just to keep things fun! If I did the same thing for a while, I’d get burnt out!”

Combined with the truly beautiful vocals of Suzanne Perry, Lum’s work in Love Spirals Downwards is a lush, wondrous experience. The band’s third album, Ever, has just been released on Projekt, and clearly demonstrates that Lum and Perry have moved from being simply fine disciples of the Cocteau Twins school of performance to becoming distinctly intriguing artists in their own right.

For Lum, the question of influence is a tricky one, reflecting the tension between inspiration and the need to be one’s own person.

“It’s hard to say which bands listen to are my influences and which are not. I guess everything I listen to somehow gets mixed up in what I do. That’s a tough question, because I don’t know what I’m trying to get away from, or what I’m trying to be like.”

On Ever, Lum found new ways of creating songs (reflected especially well in the new single “Sideways Forest,” in both its original and stripped-down, pulsing remix) which helped flesh out the album in different, intriguing ways, as opposed to the usual practice where he would give Perry a full song track to compose lyrics for and to sing over.

“Usually everything would be completed by that point, all the guitars and basic drum patterns. This album, I found that it was interesting to not have everything down, to just have the basic tracks for Suzanne to sing on, and then afterward I’d add different, new guitar parts that her vocals inspired me to do. It’s a little more interaction than me saying, ‘Here, here’s a song, sing on it and let me finish it.'”

For such a studio-based band –as Lum notes elsewhere, he was creating home tapes four years before Love Spirals Downwards released a record, while careful, full production marks all three releases so far—it might seem that live performances would be something hard to carry off.

Yet the band have played a number of shows over time, which Lum sees as a distinctively different way of looking at the duo’s work.

“For other bands, it might be natural to play live and try and record that later. For me, I record and then later I think, ‘Well, if we are going to play this live, how are we going to do it?’ There’s many different ways we could have gone about it, and the way I chose is essentially the two of us. We don’t have any backing tapes, sequencers or keyboards; we just have Suzanne singing and me playing acoustic guitar. Occasionally she’ll play a little tambourine.

I’ve learned, after playing a few shows, that live is about getting this kind of energy going or magic power happening! One thing that surprised me was that I didn’t know how possible that would be with just our stripped-down live sound. We thought we might need drums or all this other stuff. I’ve found that our acoustic sets are much better than they’d be with everything else!”

Though the band don’t play tours per se, having played at most three separate shows at any one jaunt, Love Spirals Downwards have played its share of one-off shows over time, with one of the most interesting, according to Lum, located in Mexico City — not least because it showed that the band’s fan base isn’t just a goth thing.

“The Mexico City show was typical of our kind of audience, with a mish-mash of different kinds of people. We tend to attract an extremely diverse crowd. There were goths there, but there were any other kind of fill-in-the-blank kind there as well? It was our biggest show, and that was weird! We’d never played to that many people before. Pertormance-wise, we were doing pretty bad that night! But they were energetic, and we fed off that; it made our evening go a little better!”

What’s next? With a few more one-off shows planned in the spring, Lum has already begun recording again, though there’s nothing specific on the horizon: “I don’t have this big scheme or plan; I may stop soon, or I may go for another ten years!”

Interview in Black Moon

Love Spirals Downwards is Ryan Lum and Suzanne Perry. They are one of the bands in the line up at the Projekt Festival. They will be hitting the ethereal air waves with their unique guitar and keyboards. This is one of the bands that I can’t wait to see at the festival. – Lou

Interview by Armand Rosamilia

BLACK MOON: How is your relationship with Projekt Records and Sam Rosenthal?

RL: It’s been pretty good. We get along good.

SP: I think they’re good to us. The royalties are really good. They do a good job of promotion. We’ve been able to be friends with them too.

RL: As opposed to purely business associates.

SP: Obviously, some things are all business. They don’t just think about sales.

RL: Given that fact of life, Projekt is good to us.

SP: They’re artists too.

Continue reading Interview in Black Moon

THE NATIONAL, Thurs, February 29, 1996


Music for the end of the millennium

By XAVIER QUIRARTE

Suzanne Perry and Ryan Lum are in music first and foremost for the pleasure of creating sounds, for the freedom to taste their art without any kind of commitment. Love Spirals Downwards, a joint project that began in the early nineties, has crystallized to date on two albums, Idylls and Ardor, published by the independent American company Projekt.

There have been some of the adjectives that his work has deserved:  “Millennium”, “Angelical.”

Continue reading THE NATIONAL, Thurs, February 29, 1996

The News, Vol XLVI NO. 232, Feb 29. 1996

U.S. Avante Garde Duo To Play D.F.

By Jose Fernandez Ramos, The News Staff Reporter

Love Spirals Downwards is one of those alternative bands whose music tends to attract a cult following.

What has happened to this Los Angeles duo, featuring Suzanne Perry (vocals) and Ryan Lum (guitars, electronics), is interesting and sometimes funny.

“One time a magazine requested an interview thinking that we would have a lot to say about LSD, because of the band’s name.” Perry says. “When they found out we have never tried it they lost interest.”

Although many fans attribute the duo’s music with spiritual, mystic and even healing powers, and critics have labelled their work with adjectives as diverse as “dark ethereal,” “gothic,””dream pop,” “angelic,” “Avant Garde,” “ambient,” etc., this young duo put things very simply.

“We just compose music without any specific intention,”Lum says.

Continue reading The News, Vol XLVI NO. 232, Feb 29. 1996

Band news

We’ve had lots of things happening lately including a couple of shows in Mexico City and Guadalajara. And there is a new, still untitled, album that we are almost finished recording and mixing. It should have 10 new tracks and we hope to have it released in May or June depending on how soon we finish, as well as other record label factors. Also, we will most likely be contributing new songs to Hyperium Records’ upcoming compilations Heavenly Voices 4 and Heavenly Grooves.

We haven’t even begun to think about new tours yet, but some shows may happen later this year. One show that we are scheduled to perform is at the Projekt Records festival in Chicago. It is a two evening event that will include nearly all of Projekt’s current recording line-up. We will be closing the first night on June 25.

For more information on this, call the Projekt info-line at (312) 491-0108 or check out http://charlotte.acns.nwu.edu/arielr/projekt on the internet (the current site, but soon to be moving Projekt web site).

(taken from the band’s official mail list)

News Update

Sorry it’s been awhile since our last update. We’ve been very busy with many different things, one of which was our short ‘tour’. After a show in Seattle last Spring, we did a 3-show tour in August and September of Boston, Philadelphia, and New York, followed by a show in Los Angeles. Many thanks to Pat Ogle at Projekt for making that happen! Being a studio-band and not having played live before, much to our surprise we had a great time doing these shows. It was especially nice to be able to meet some of you who write us! We hope to do more next year. And, we are tentatively set for doing one last show this year in Los Angeles again at the Troubadour on December 16.

Also, we are in the middle of recording and mixing a new album (still untitled), which will hopefully be released in the Spring of ’96 depending on when we finish. In the meantime, we released a new track, a cover of ‘Welcome Christmas from Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas. on the new Projekt holiday CD called Excelsis.

‘Excelsis: A dark noel’ various artist compilation on Projekt Records

I also wanted to let you know that there’s a decent mailing list called ‘4AD-L’. In addition to bands on its namesake 4AD, other related music such as ourselves and a few other Projekt artists are often discussed and reviewed. To subscribe, send email to 4ad-l@listserv.american.edu, and type “subscribe 4AD-L” . We will try to post new information regarding our shows and releases in their News section.

(taken from the band’s official mail list)

Muse Magazine Reviews Troubadour Show

The Troubadour, Los Angeles, CA September 21, 1995:

The L.A. based duo, Love Spirals Downwards, create soundscapes layered with soothingly airy keyboards, acoustic guitar arpeggios, and ethereal female vocals. In a rare appearance at the Troubadour, Ryan Lum and Suzanne Perry stripped their music to its essentials: an amplified Ovation acoustic guitar, a haunting voice, and one beautiful melody after another. The rapt Troubadour audience responded enthusiastically to the pair, who present their music with the seriousness it deserves, but who entertain with humorously casual banter and interplay with the crowd between songs. 

— John Koenig, Muse Magazine

Underscope Reviews Troubadour Show

The Troubadour, West Lost Angeles, September 21, 1995 

“One of the darlings of the innovating Projekt label, Love Spirals Downwards consists  of only 2 members. Given the swirling, multi-tracked ambience of their records, one  might expect their live show to have difficulty living up to such studio magic, even  with a requisite backing tape. But LSD took to the stage with only one instrument:  Ryan Lum’s six-stringed acoustic guitar. As they began, Suzanne’s angelic voice  floated out over the hushed audience. Trust me, no backing tape was needed. Stripped  down to this bare essence of chiming guitar and dazzling voice, LSD’s songs burned  with a raw, ethereal brilliance. Anyone who narrow-mindedly accuses them of being  simply studio musicians needs to be taken out back and whupped good. The set’s highlights included the lovely “Will You Fade” and “Write in Water,” taken from their latest  record Ardor. The audience showered them with wild acclaim after each songs, and  left fashionably disappointed when LSD ran out of songs to play.” 

— H. Aaron Ripes, UnderScope Magazine 

Dewdrops Issue #14 Reviews Ardor

Love Spirals Downwards
PROJEKT
Ardor

There is really nothing NOT to like here, I but if this album suffers form anything it’s that it has too much of a good thing (re: the For Against album, but to a lesser degree here). Ryan Lum’s scintillating guitar effects seamlessly blend with Suzanne Perry’s high pitched vocals. Each song taken separately, or in twos, reaches for the top of the genre, begging comparisons to Victorialand-era Cocteau Twins (believe me, I’d do away with this tired comparison if I could come up with a better one!). And considered in this way, the album is pretty wonderful. But when taken all at once, it approaches an overdose; a pleasant one, but one that leaves me a little uneasy nonetheless. A little more variety might have helped, but as is, Ardor still succeeds.

8 lilies – Brant


What more can be said about a band which consistently creates some of the most beautiful music out there? With breathtaking, shimmering, hallucinogenic instrumentation and vocals that issue straight from the heart, Ryan Lum and Suzanne Perry create equal numbers of textural, nigh-ambient tracks, and stand-alone ether-bliss monuments (the closest they get to singles!). One could very easily list all the powerful similarities to the Cocteau Twins’ Treasure, Echoes in a Shallow Bay, and (most of all) Victorialand — even the mesmerizing, voiceless moments of Dead Can Dance. But make no mistake, Love Spirals Downwards stand alone as a landmark to ethereal and madrigal greatness.

9 lilies — Pat