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.”

During a talk held in front of a trio of cups of coffee and remnants of a chicken salad, both smile at the compliments, after all they are in the music as a result of a kind of game. The story is summarized in a few words: without any kind of musical academic instruction, she was part of a choir simply for the pleasure of singing. He, a guitarist since he was eight years old, had some recordings he’d completed. They both met, went out together for a season, they fell in love and one day they decided to make songs.

“We made three pieces, the first three that I had recorded in my life,” says Suzanne, “and we put them on a tape, just as a kind of joke. We sent copies to three places and as a result we were signed.”

What began as a game, has maintained its playful tone. Suzanne and Ryan work on other things that have nothing to do with music, so when they get together to write songs they don’t have the commitment of an upcoming album release or concert tour.

In fact, it was only last year they began to perform in public, while their label, Projekt, gives them full freedom to record whenever they feel the need for it.

“On our first album (‘Idylls’) there is a lot of reverberation, the sound is much less clear, darker. I think that ‘Ardor’ is much clearer. Now we are working on an album that will be closer to the acoustic show that we will present in Mexico.” For those who are accustomed to their records, an acoustic concert will be a surprise, although equally enriching, the singer promises.

“We don’t want to do the same thing over and over again.” adds Ryan, “so once we finished the first album, we started the second. We don’t make a decision to make an album in this or that way, the changes are simply made naturally.”

The images of Suzanne’s poetry can be interpreted in various ways as the use of words is part of the construction of sound. 

“The lyrics are not really about something,” confesses the singer. “Some are approximations of languages that attract me. For example, there are some pieces in which I think I can use something that sounds like Italian, although I don’t speak the language, so I use some Italian words or phonetic sounds like this language and I incorporate them. That’s how I’ve done some French style songs, and I’ll surely do some in Spanish.”

Reader of authors such as Albert Camus or Marguerite Yourcenar, Suzanne assures that Love Spirals Downwards moves away from direct meaning in the songs because there is a lot of music of that type. “It’s interesting, because you may not know our language but even so, it evokes emotions similar to those who do know it. In addition, when you don’t understand a language, you concentrate on the sounds. In our case, words not only have to do with the language and images they can project, but also with the sounds, because the intention you can give them is related to the way you place your tongue, how loud you sing or the type of microphone you use.”

Being cataloged as Gothic Dark does not bother them, although they prefer not to attach labels to their music. “Many people are worried that we are going to do an acoustic show or if we are going to dress Gothic, like vampires,” Suzanne says laughing, and adopts a jokingly evil gesture. In our case, it’s not about the form, but about the background. For us, the fundamental thing is music, sound, the rest is superficial.” Ryan is happy to know that the darkies enjoy their albums, but he assures that his songs are open to all tastes, to any type of audience.”

As for the origin of the peculiar name, which means something like “love in descending spirals,” they say that a long time ago, around two or three in the morning, after a day of intense work, they were listening on the radio to a broadcaster who said: “Oh, love spirals upwards!” (Suzanne adopts a cheesy announcer voice). “Immediately we thought: ‘That’s a good name!” but we changed it from “upwards” to “downwards” to more fit to the music we made then, a little more depressive, more dark, gothic, or whatever.”