For all you more musicianly types, there is story on us in the current March issue of Acoustic Guitar. And for further guitar and gear secrets, check out the “Gearbox” section of that issue for a second small article on us.
New music
We are currently finishing up some new tracks for an EP/CD-Single to be released in the Spring of 1997. It’ll be quite unlike anything we’ve released before. Also, I think it’d be appropriate and fun to end the year with my (Ryan’s) favorite releases of 1996.
- Mojave 3 – Ask Me Tomorrow
- Everything But the Girl – Walking Wounded
- Logical Progression (v/a drum & bass compilation)
- Perfume Tree – A Lifetime Away
- Red House Painters – Songs For A Blue Guitar
LSD “living room concert”
Here’s the latest information I received from Echoes regarding our recently taped performance. Check their website to find out what local radio stations you can hear this on:
December 13, 1996
A Living Room Concert with Love Spirals DownwardsActually, it’s a bedroom concert since that’s where Suzanne Perry and Ryan Lum of Love Spirals Downwards have their home studio. We visit the duo in their Los Angeles boudoir, where they unfold the delicate filigree of their music in an intimate performance for the heavenly voice of Perry and the acoustic guitar of Lum, playing music from across their 3 albums, including the latest, Ever (Projekt).
Daily Freeman, Nov 29, 1996
LOVE SPIRALS DOWN IS DECIDEDLY UNUSUAL
By Phillip H. Farber
Love Spirals Downward is only nominally a band. Really, they are something of a recording project undertaken by the duo of Ryan Lum and Suzanne Perry, just having fun with their music in a home studio. The result, though, has been three albums of atmospheric, ethereal music that has the ability to transport the listener in remarkable ways.
“We develop it and do it all at home,” explains Lum. “We’ve got our own home recording studio. We’ve had it for years and have just been growing and expanding it. We’re pretty well equipped to do it all at home. In fact, the way we write, too, we have to do it at home. We don’t make up 10 or 11 songs and say, ‘Okay! Time to go to the studio and record all the songs!’ I’ll have some rough sounds or ideas and I’ll record them down on tape or into the sampler, and from there I’ll start getting more ideas. It will build from what I previously recorded. That wold be a very costly, practically impossible, thing to do in the studio. We would be racking up the kind of budget of ‘Sgt. Pepper’s’ or something like that.”
Their first two albums, Idylls and Ardor, were critically acclaimed, and even if this isn’t exactly the stuff of Top 40 hits, they developed a solid following. Ever, their latest efforts, will likely take these musicians even farther, although that may not have been their intention in recording it.
“I really loathe the music business,” Perry exclaims. “I really don’t think about it. I hope people have a good experience — or a positive experience — but beyond that I don’t expect people to get much from it. That’s not my intention when I make it. I don’t even know why I do it. It’s fun for me. It’s fun. When you get past that, you get into trouble. Nobody ever experiences anything like you want them to. And who am I to want people to experience in a certain way? Beyond that, I can’t even control that… I can’t control if people are going to buy it, or even care about it.”
Continue reading Daily Freeman, Nov 29, 1996
Upcoming radio performances
On Friday November 15 at about 8 PM we will be doing a live on-air performance on KUCI, a radio station in Orange County, California. We will be performing 5 or 6 songs, as well as doing an interview. For those who live out of its range, they are hoping to do a live internet broadcast of this. Regardless, it will be available on the internet soon after. I’ll tell you where to find it as soon as they tell me.
Also on November 14, we will be recorded live at our studio as part of the “Living Room Concert” series of the nationally syndicated radio show Echoes. I’ll let you know here when it will be aired. And on November 16, for those in the area, don’t miss the Steve Roach show in Santa Monica. He’s one of the most amazing live (as well as recording) artist I’ve ever experienced and highly recommend seeing him.
Ever out now!
The domestic release of our new full-length Ever was right on schedule and should now have made its way to stores. It will soon be released in Europe. If you are having trouble finding it, either here or abroad, you can order directly from Projekt. We hope that you’ll check out both Ever and the Sideways Forest CD-single as they are quite different from each other. Apart from the “Sideways Forest” track, the other 2 songs on the CD-single are unavailable elsewhere and are unlike anything else we’ve released.
Projekt has some very nice color posters for Ever as well as a new Love Spirals Downwards t-shirt. Try contacting Projekt or calling their 800-CD-LASER phone number for more information.
For next year, plans are being made for some West Coast and East Coast shows. I’ll post more about that later as more information develops.
Ever & Sideways Forest news
Ever, our new full length CD, still looks right on track for being released on the week of September 15, 1996. What that boils down to is you won’t see it in stores until October, but you will be able order it direct from Projekt that week. It’s hard for me to describe what it sounds like, but everyone at the label seems to agree that Ever is different than our previous albums. Sideways Forest, our new CD-single, has been out for about a month now. The label tells me that the trip-hoppy “Quantum Remix” of “Sideways Forest” (which is only on the CD-single) has been getting a bit more radio and club play than normal.
We have no upcoming shows planned and it seems that we are done playing live for the year. If this changes, I’ll mention it here. We are planning on doing more shows next year.
Sideways Forest Maxi-Single Out
Our new maxi-single is out now on Projekt Records!
After two albums of layered, interwoven textures evoking warm, dreamlike states of consciousness, Love Spirals Downwards emerge with a distillation of their sumptuous sound on their new single ‘Sideways Forest’. Triggered by the group’s experiences of performing live with a more stripped down, acoustic set, on “Sideways Forest” we hear the intrinsic beauty of simple, flowing guitar melody and a lone, singular voice, beckoning listeners to embellish the sound in their own minds. The “Quantum Remix” of the title track deconstructs these acoustic elements and rebuilds from the song’s foundation, adding sampled and electronic patterns, morphing them into a euphoric journey into trip-ambience. The disc concludes with the instrumental “Amarillo,” echoing themes hinted at in “Sideways Forest,” while uniting the group’s acoustic elements and free flowing, open atmospherics.
The single release of ‘Sideways Forest’ will be followed by Love Spirals Downwards third full length release, ‘Ever,’ scheduled for September 15, 1996. The band will perform selected live dates in support of ‘Ever’ during the winter and spring of 1997.
— Projekt Records
Recent news
Our CD-single, Sideways Forest, will be released on August 1, 1996, and the new full-length album will follow on September 15.
Sean from Eden will be staying with us here for the next two weeks and we will be collaborating together in our studio to see what happens (maybe there’ll be an EP sometime in the future?). Plus, I think he will really dig Disneyland and seeing Jim Morrison’s house in Venice Beach. I would also like to say thanks to everyone who said hello to us at the recent Projekt Fest in Chicago.
And, check the Projekt News for more info on our two upcoming shows in Los Angeles and San Francisco.
Chicago Tribune ProjektFest Piece
Cool. The Chicago Tribune published a story promoting the upcoming Projekt Festival happening at the Vic Theatre.
Psst! Projekt label’s going live with it’s dark sound
by Achy Obejas for “After Hours”
Step aside, Ajax and Minty Fresh. Make some room.
This Tuesday and Wednesday nights, Chicago experiences “From Across this Gray Land,” the first festival celebrating artists on the Projekt label.
The what?
It seems that while our town has been aggressively slamming and bumping to a cavalcade of local label bands at Lounge Ax and the Double Door, Sam Rosenthal and his Projekt artists quietly stole into town and set up shop.
And quietly is the operative word here.
Projekt artists — including Rosenthal’s group, Black Tape for a Blue Girl — are deeply immersed in something that could only be called dark music: ambient, gothic and ethereal. It’s lush, dense and often gloomy. Unlike most trendy ambient music, Projekt’s ambient records feature vocals; there is virtually nothing to dance to; it swirls and envelopes with an unabashed romanticism. Compared with most of the noise in town, Projekt practically whispers.
Rosenthal, 30, started Projekt back in 1983 but it didn’t get moving until three years later, when he moved to California from his native Ft. Lauderdale. Feeling alienated and depressed, he recorded “The Rope,” which he describes as “a combo of techno pop and ambient, somewhere between Gary Neuman and Eno.”
“The Rope” was promptly strangled by the critics, although Rosenthal developed a small core of followers. “At the time, it really upset me,” he confesses. “Now I just kind of laugh. Now I realize a lot of pseudo-intellectual rock critics don’t want to deal with what they think is sappy romantic crap.”
So Rosenthal persevered: With Black Tape for a Blue Girl, he released “Mesmerized by the Sirens” in 1987, “Ashes in the Brittle Air” in 1989, “Chaos of Desire” in 1993, “This Lush Garden Within” in 1994; this year has produced “Remnants of a Deeper Purity.”
But is anyone buying this except Rosenthal and his mother?
Rosenthal laughs again. “We sell all around the world,” he explains. “We sell in Asia and Europe. We’re in Borders.”
Projekt’s best-selling band, Love Spirals Downward, sells about 10,000 CDs per release. Black Tape for a Blue Girl sells about 9,000. Located near Chinatown, Projekt is Rosenthal’s full-time job and obsession. The label employs eight people.
The Projekt Festival, the first of its kind for the label, will feature a buffet of bands, but Rosenthal’s honest about how scary it is for him.
“We’ve got fans coming from Hong Kong and England,” he says. “It just seemed like a good thing to do, to meet the people who like the music. But Black Tape has been a studio band for 10 years. It’s never been possible to play live — so we’ve never done it before.”