Monthly Archives: November 2002

Press, Reviews

Exclaim! Reviews ‘Windblown Kiss’

A largely positive review of our debut album was posted by Coreen Wolasnki of Exclaim! It reads, in part:

The gothic past of Lum resurfaces with those airy, sparkling guitars that fans of the Cocteau Twins will relish. Ethereal/ambient goth music is one of my favourite things, and this duo (Ryan Lum and vocalist/songwriter Anji Bee) captures the nuances of the genre while putting their own signature on it. Lum’s guitars are the driving force here, as he flips easily between electric and acoustic, classical, Latin, and goth/folk styles. Bee’s vocals are gentle and understated, but it would have been more memorable to hear her out of her comfort zone, just belting it out once or twice. I do like the jazzy edge she shows in some tracks, giving the disc that lazy, “stay in bed until three kind of feel (see final track “I Can’t See You”). Gothic jazz? Hell, why not?

Read the full review of ‘Windblown Kiss’ on Exclaim!

Blog

Mexico, here we come!

Well, it’s finally finalized. We’ll be going to Mexico next month for 3 shows and a day of promotion. Apparently we’ll be interviewed for TV and newspapers. Sounds very busy, all in all. I hope we’ll still have time to enjoy the 3 cities we’re visiting. Ryan’s told me so much about Mexico City. He’s happy to be able to see a few new places this trip. Guanajuanto is said to be very beautiful. The club in Leon looks very, very nice too! Should be a good time.

Interviews

Frequenicas Alternas Interview Lovespirals

The following is a transcription of Lovespirals November 9, 2002 interview Iohann Rashi from Frequenicas Alternas airing on Radio Universidad de Puerto Rico stations WRTU 89.7 FM and WRUO 88.3 FM. The questions of the DJ been translated from Spanish to English. Apologies for how rough they are.

Lovespirals is a group that has had a long history and is currently in a process of transformation, formerly known as Love Spirals Downwards. They face a new change, a new facet and new perspectives in their way of creating and producing music. For tonight, listening to the cuts of the album ‘Windblown Kiss,’ we will have Ryan Lum and Anji Bee, the members of Lovespirals, talking to us about this new creation. We will listen to Anji Bee, commenting in a brief and summarized form the historical process that Lovespirals has suffered from Love Spirals Downwards to today with this new production, ‘Windblown Kiss.’

ANJI: Let’s see, Lovespirals first started, I guess, in 1999. Ryan had started working on some solo material with the saxophone player, Doron Orenstein, who appears on our album, ‘Windblown Kiss.’ He was working on some drum and bass club songs. He and I had met through KUCI when I interviewed him for the album ‘Flux’ –I think I also interviewed him somewhat after ‘Ever’ came out– and we kept bumping into each other at different events around L.A. and we had a lot in common. I dunno, somehow he invited me into his studio to show me some of the music he was working on, such as a song called “Beatitude,” which is an instrumental, and the song that later became “Love Survives.” So he played me two tracks and we just kinda started talking about the possibility of me singing on some of his new tracks.

Continue reading Frequenicas Alternas Interview Lovespirals →
Interviews, News, Reviews

Lovespirals Featured by WRTU FM, Puerto Rico

Radio Universidad de Puerto Rico stations WRTU 89.7 FM and WRUO 88.3 FM are running a series of programs with Lovespirals on the ecclectic music show Frequencias Alternas. Last week, host Iohann Rashi, interviewed Ryan and Anji about their new release, Windblown Kiss. Tommorrow he will run a special show hosted by Anji, highlighting some of the bands and songs which inspire Lovespirals. The program runs from 9pm to midnight.

Here is a Google Translation of Rashi’s recent review of Windblown Kiss.:

The Sound of a Kiss to the Air
By Iohann Rashi, WRTU

Lovespirals Windblown Kiss

THE GROUPING
Lovespirals is the fusion of talents of Anji Bee and Ryan Lum. Anji, is the one in charge to give voice to the project, Ryan music through different types from guitars.  Both create a unique sound that explores all type of styles and textures, that include from eclectic and the ethereal thing, until experimentations with I touch of jazz, ambient, folk and world music.  A quality that distinguishes them is its expressive freedom in its musical composition, allowing the imagination to travel freely by any route that the sound of its compositions allows it.

THE DISC
Windblown Kiss is the turn out to join tastes and influences of both integrates in a unique style that has given the seal them that distinguishes them.  We can appreciate in the voice of Anji Bee a sweet and enthusiastic voice that molds its intensity in each cut, showing to us the guitar and enchantment much that can express a voice that without technological complications can fill to its ears and their minds with beautiful stamps.  This disc includes 10 songs, plus a hidden additional song at the end of the CD Between the additional enchantments of this disc, a song sung in titled Spanish “Déjame” and “Windblown Kiss” is included who includes letters in English and German, in addition to a tribute to the America band with the song “You girl”.

THE RECOMMENDATION
When listening to this album you will notice a mixture of all type of styles, which gives it its particular singularity:  it has something of blues, jazz, rock, folk, world music, ethereal, gothic.  But it is not any of them.  Or perhaps it is all them all simultaneously.  That is what is so special about Lovespirals, its capacity to fuse so many influences and turn them something so simple and simultaneously so diverse.  Reminding us that music is a freedom of expression, as a kiss sent to the air.

Our qualification from 0 to 5:  5 radios

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Mexico City Area Tour

Plans are still underway for us to do a few shows in and around Mexico City next month. It is unnerving waiting until the last moment like this, but our manager assures us it is happening. He even asked us for some video footage to use in television promotions — but we don’t have any! Right now, talk is that we’ll do Mexico City, Guanajuato, and now possibly Morelia, as well. Leon was also asking about us. The show dates fall between the 12th and 15th so far. Looks like it will be a full week!