Love Spirals Downwards: 1991 - 1999
Over their 8 year history with Projekt Records, Love Spirals Downwards released four 10,000+ selling albums; Idylls (1992), Ardor (1994), Ever (1996), and Flux (1998), plus the single, Sideways Forest (1996), and retrospective collection, Temporal (2000), incorporating the styles of ethereal, shoegazer, folk, world, ambient, and electronica to create a sound uniquely their own. Band founder and sole musician, Ryan Lum, constantly strove to push the boundaries of LSD's ethereal pop music formula, while Suzanne Perry's otherwordly vocalizations helped to maintain a certain consistancy from album to album. As Lum moved closer to a contemporary pop sound, creative differences arose, eventually resulting in the enlistment of Kristen Perry to complete vocals for the 1998 album, Flux. In late 1999, Lum began collaborating with singer/songwriter, Anji Bee, under the shortened moniker Lovespirals. Lovespirals released their first full-length LP Windblown Kiss in 2002.
Love Spirals Downwards launched their career in 1991 as a flagship band of Projekt Records. Their music was actually begun much earlier by band founder, Ryan Lum, who had studied guitar as a child, jammed in garage bands as a teen, and had been recording music for years on his own 4-track. One fateful day, Ryan recorded the wordless ethereal vocals of Suzanne Perry to one of his instrumentals.
"The first song we ever made was "Forgo," which is on Idylls. I had never written a song before. I just got in there and started humming in the microphone and that's how it happened. And we listened to it and we thought, 'Hey, that's not too bad!' And then we just made a couple more and just sent them out."
Suzanne Perry, Ink Spots #19 (April 1995)
"We weren't trying to be a band, so we were shocked and surprised when there was any response at all. We mailed out the tape to three companies: 4AD, Creation, and Projekt - who we didn't know about, we heard of it through a friend of a friend. Sam wrote us back a letter of interest."
-- Ryan Lum, The Ninth Wave: A Journal of Nocturnal Culture #5 (May 1995)
Indeed, Projekt Records featured two songs on their 1991 compilation, From Across This Gray Land No. 3. These selections immediately garnered attention from fans and critics worldwide, sparking their career as one of Projekt's most successful acts to date.
Primarily a recording project, Love Spirals Downwards performed live about a dozen times, generally in conjunction with Projekt Festivals. LSD's last live show was in 1998, in support of Flux.
Cocteau Twins, Slowdive, Mazzy Star, Mojave 3, SEEFEEL, Dead Can Dance, Everything But the Girl, Massive Attack, LTJ Bukem, Perfume Tree, Led Zeppelin, Jefferson Airplane, Grateful Dead, Fleetwood Mac, and The Cure.
All but the last album, Flux, were recorded on a 1/4" tape 8 track machine.
"Dissatisfied with current trends and styles in much of today's pop music, our music is a unique blend of what we find to be aesthetically pleasing. To us, our music transcends any one pigeonhole categorization into one particular style or genre. Elements from East Indian music, psychedelic rock, and ethereal - among others - can be found in our music. In creating atmosphere, we meld "exotically" tuned and processed acoustic, as well as electric, guitars with female vocals and percussion. In breaking with more conventional vocals, we completely abandon the use of language as a conveyor of thought and emotion in hopes that the entire musical piece, instrumental and vocals, work as one artistic expression."
-- Love Spirals Downwards, 1991.