My current band, Lovespirals, has finished our 3rd album, Long Way From Home, and are now taking pre-orders. While the official release date is scheduled for October 23rd, we will mail out personally autographed copies of the new CD as soon as they become available. Plus, there’s a remix EP that you’ll get immediately as digital download with every order placed through the Lovespirals Webstore.
For fans of my older Love Spirals Downwards music, this new album should please you. I’ve gone back to making guitar based music and there’s a dark dreamy feel to it that’s reminiscent of Ardor and Ever. I think it’s my finest work yet. You can listen to a medley of the entire album and a full song or two on the album page for Long Way From Home.
Lovespirals’ brand new song, “Empty Universe,” from our upcoming CD, Long Way From Home — as well as “Write in Water” from the upcoming remastered reissue of Love Spirals Downwards‘ Ardor — are included on the new boxed set compilation, Projekt 200. A celebration of the 200th release for Projekt, the three era collection includes 32 songs from the label’s 24 year history. This limited edition DVD-sized “DVStar” package with an 8-page booklet and 3-CDs will be available in stores Sept 25th, but you can buy it at projekt.com now.
Projekt 200 3-CD Boxed Set
Yes! As hard as it is to imagine, PROJEKT now has 200 releases. 24 years in the making, I put together this 3-CD compilation covering three distinct parts of the Projekt sound: The Early Years, The Current Era, and Ambient Loop. Packaged in a beautiful DVD-Sized “DVStar” package, this is a limited edition release full of love and passion. I have been thinking, for many years, about how to represent the label, when we turned 200….I went through the Projekt catalog and picked some of my favorite songs which represent all aspects of “the projekt sound.”
There are also new tracks, recorded just for PROJEKT200.. Tearwave recorded the gorgeous “Comfort in Angel’s Wings.” I recorded a new Black Tape For A Blue Girl song, “I Strike You Down,” with Elysabeth on vocals, and featuring some nice guitar textures from Doug of Tearwave. There’s a brand new track from Lovespirals returning to the dream-pop sound people love in Ryan’s work. There are also unreleased ambient/electronic tracks from Alio Die, Fear Falls Burning and Vidna Obmana.
PROJEKT200 also includes a brand new mix of Black Tape For A Blue Girl’s “Across A Thousand Blades” plus a Steve Roach track that is not actually on Projekt at all (it’s from one of his Timeroom releases): “In The Eyes Of Noche” which features some of my piano as well as ethereal female vocals.
I am very excited and proud to present this overview of the label, as we prepare to enter our 25th year!
This week I finished audio mastering for the Ardor and Idylls reissues that are coming out this summer. The CDs will be released as digipacs, whereas the original releases were jewel boxes, so though the reissues will look pretty similar to the originals, they will be different. It sure will be nice to get current contact information into the credits. Funny to think that I had no band website (very few did) when these albums were originally released. I believe I have a band website listed in the Ever credits, but that site is outdated and gone. Anyway, things are coming along nicely and on track. More news soon.
PodShow’s Podsafe Music Network is now offering a selection of Love Spirals Downwards songs for free use in music podcasts. We’ve included the album title and release year in the song name to assist with announcements or show notes. Every album was released by Projekt and is available on iTunes, Amazon, and CDBaby. You can also buy most of them from the Lovespirals Webstore. Check out the songs on Love Spirals Downwards’ PMN page and be sure to let us know you played us!
At long last, we are totally redesigning the band site! We figured it was high time we took advantage of current blog technology and joined WordPress. This has been the easiest site to build, ever. There still might be a few tweaks here and there, but take a look around and give us some feedback.
Our 1996 track “Madras,” from Ever, was selected as a “Deep Cut” for the iTunes Essentials Shoegaze & Beyond playlist alongside legendary bands Cocteau Twins, My Bloody Valentine, Slowdive, Jesus and Mary Chain, Lush, and more. Here’s what iTunes has to say about the Deep Cuts selections:
All things must pass, intense musical movements included, but when the first-wave shoegazers finally looked up from their footwear, what they saw was a whole new scene that they themselves had begotten. The proof is in the Deep Cuts…
Love Spirals Downwards’ singer, Suzanne Perry, appears on one song of the latest Falling You album, Human. “An Angel Ameliorate” is very ambient and sad with Suzy’s classic glossolalia style lyrics. To the best of my knowledge, this is her first released work since Melodyguild’s cover of “Sally’s Song” on the Projekt Holiday Single 2. You can check out the track for free from Magnatune here.
During our last trip to Mexico City, we visited the Lounge King Radio Network studio to do an interview for their newly launched show, Atmosphere 69. A half hour “Music Therapy Artist Feature” on Lovespirals highlighting tracks from our new album, ‘Free and Easy,’ interspersed with interview clips will air on Mix96 FM Canada, as well as streaming internet radio stations Luxuria Music and Lounge Radio. Check it out at www.atmosphere69.com
We just got back from a great weekend in Mexico City. As always, we were treated wonderfully by our lovely fans and the producer of the show, Joseph of Noise Kontrol, our distributor in Mexico. We played many songs from Free and Easy for the first time, debuted two brand new songs that we had just recently written, and did a version of “Avicenna” we put together for this show, but the hit of the night was definitely “Dejame.” We were so surprised to hear the entire crowd singing along! What an unforgettable experience!
“Honey and Cool Jazz ‘n’ Rock: An interview with Ryan Lum and Anji Bee of Lovespirals”
Matt:Ryan – Anji’s voice is hauntingly memorable; her voice sticks in my mind long after I heard the songs. Are you as hypnotized by her ability to mesh with your vision of how Lovespirals songs should be communicated as we are hearing it?
Ryan: Yeah, it’s surprising how her voice just fits perfectly. I’m very lucky. Her voice has been as important as anything in the evolution of our music together.
Matt:Anji, obviously you are an excellent fit with Lovespirals. The forward progression of the band incorporates you better than many bands undergoing a shift in style. How do you feel your involvement with Lovespirals changes the band? Have you brought your own influences into the structure of the band’s musical vision?
Anji: It would be impossible for me not to bring my own influences into the band, since we are a collaborative team. I think I bring an earthier element to the music. My vocals are very lyrically based, as opposed to Suzanne’s more non-verbal stylings, and my sound is more soulful compared to her purely ethereal sound.
Matt:Where do you draw inspiration from when you write songs? Do songs come easily or do they have to be coaxed from you?
Ryan: Every song comes about in its own way. But generally the main musical idea for a song comes pretty easily. The polishing of that idea into a recorded song though is more of an effort, mainly because we want our new baby to be very good.
Anji: I have found it is impossible to “coax” Ryan into making music. But once he does get inspired, he’ll work for hours and days non-stop until a song is complete. He gets very annoyed if anything pops up to prevent him from working on music. As far as my inspiration goes, I would have to say that it just comes from my life experiences. Most times I write lyrics long before any music has begun, but occasionally I write lyrics specifically in relation to some music. Generally the vocal melody is inspired by the music, though sometimes my original melody fits the music as-is.
Lovespirals by Matt Holm (2005)
Matt:How long does it take for a Lovespirals song to birth, from initial inspiration to completed (but not yet recorded) structure at the demo or rehearsal level?
Ryan: Once I have an idea that we’re into, we’ll work on getting it’s structure down; stuff like where they lyrics go and how the song flows from beginning to end. that’s pretty quick work, about an hour or two, but it’s not too much of a song at that moment. A song really starts to take life once I start laying down a few tracks.
Anji: We don’t really rehearse music per se. We’ll spend some time going through the song with just guitar and vocals, figuring out the whole verse/chorus/bridge arrangement and then go into the studio to begin work on it.
Matt:Typically, how many versions of a song come forth before the perfect one is settled on? Often, you’ll hear slow demos on what eventually becomes faster songs, or vice versa. Does that happen for Lovespirals?
Ryan: Not really. If anything, on a few occasions we’ve gone back and put in better drums, as we did with the title track to Free & Easy as well as the album closer “Sandcastles,” which resulted in better, stronger songs. Typically though, we try our best to get things sounding good from the start. Experience may be helping me out some with that.
Anji: The creation of Free & Easy was a little different from Windblown Kiss in that we began our second album by reworking a few songs that we held off of the first one. The songs sound basically the same now, as far as tempo and vibe, they’re just recorded better. The only song that might seem to be a new version is “Hand in Hand,” which was partially inspired by one of the first tracks we ever did together, back in 1999. We reused a sax sample and I fleshed out the vocal lines from the previous recording, but otherwise, all of Ryan’s music is completely different. So it has the same name and some similar vocals, but is really a totally new song.
Matt:What are the recording sessions like? Give us a slice of your recording process especially when an album is in bloom.
Anji: Our general workflow is this: after our initial song inspiration and jam session, we’ve figured out the chord changes and where the lyrics all fit in so that Ryan can fire up ProTools and lay down the basic guitar track. At that point, he needs to figure out a bassline and percussion. After he’s got that worked out, I go in to lay down a vocal. Sometimes this ends up just being a scratch track, but other times it’s the final vocal. Then Ryan is inspired to start adding in additional layers of music, which could be keyboard or more guitar. After that, we check out the vocals again. Sometimes I want to redo them, other times I just want to add harmonies to them. We might go back and forth, adding lushness to the production here and there, until we feel that it’s complete.
Matt:Anji, Do you continually write songs?
Anji: It seems to go in cycles for me, where I’ll have a lot of lyrical inspiration and then a slower period hits, and then another bout of inspiration begins again. I try to note anything I come up with for future use, either written in journals or recorded somehow.
Matt:Ryan – What is your musical background? You have great skill in several instruments. Were you schooled as a young child or did you pick up each instrument on your own?
Ryan: I had guitar lessons for several years when I was in elementary and middle school. And I’ve studied music and guitar on and off again at different times in my life. As for piano, I can get by, especially if I am not playing live. I usually know what chords or notes I want, but I usually don’t find the best combinations until i go back and edit what I recorded.
Matt:Ryan – From the Projekt phase of your career, do you have a favorite LSD album? (Why?) A least liked album? (Why?)
Ryan: That’s hard to say. If it had to pick a favorite, perhaps Flux, our last one. Why? It’s got a little more soul than the others and it’s not recorded as badly as the others. I also think it’s cool that I crossed ethereal dream pop with atmospheric drum and bass.
