Category Archives: Interviews

Interviews

Stratosphere Fanzine Interview Lovespirals

Interview by Jen Stratosphere

JEN: Do you consider Lovespirals to be a continuation of Love Spirals Downwards or is it a totally separate creation?

RYAN: It’s a new band for sure. But on the other hand, I’m just doing my thing: making music. I never sat down and decided to make music in a way that wasn’t natural for me. I’m just doing what I’ve always done; making music that moves me, something that challenges me to grow musically, and something I’d want to listen to when it’s all done. With each album, I think I’ve been sucessful in being genre-less. That’s something I’ve pretty much always wanted to do; not be confined by the restrictions of making music that a certain kind of genre or following expects. I’m a free musical soul and I’ve always aimed at following my musical bliss. So older fans that got that from my music should still be just as pleased, if not more so, with Lovespirals. But if you liked my older music because you were a fan of the record label and their narrow genre and style, then you probably never really got what my music was about and won’t necessarily be into Lovespirals.

ANJI: This is a complicated question. You can look at it in different ways. Sam Rosenthal said that Lovespirals are to Love Spirals Downwards what Jefferson Starship are to Jefferson Airplane, or Pink Floyd are to The Pink Floyd Sound. In each case, a band member left and the name was shortened. Is it still the same band? Then again, Love Spirals Downwards were never really a band, per se, but a recording project headed up by Ryan. Of course, we don’t perform his old songs live, which fans would probably expect if they thought of us as being the “continuation of Love Spirals Downwards.”

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Interviews

Fiber Online Interviews Lovespirals

Ryan & Anji of Lovespirals, 2002
Ryan & Anji of Lovespirals, 2002

Interview by Isobel Geo for Fiber Online, Oct 26, 2003

ISOBEL: What changed in the Lovespirals sounds with your entrance in 1999?

ANJI: The sound was already evolving in 1998, moving towards something more jazzy and funky than previously. Ryan was working with Doron Orenstein, a trained jazz saxophonist, when I joined. Adding my jazzy and soulful vocals helped to further that evolution. As we continued to work together, my song writing style brought a more poppy edge to the music. The biggest change I brought to the band was that I encouraged a collaborative song writing technique, which had been lacking in the band up to that time.

ISOBEL: The last album was Windblown Kiss released last year, so what’s the new Lovespirals’ plans for albums, tours, or remixes?

ANJI: We’ve been writing and recording new songs ever since we finished touring for Windblown Kiss, and are about half way done with an album now. Soon we need to start preparing a new live set that includes all of these new songs. Right now we are getting together files for a remix competition using our new song “Walk Away” that PeaceLoveProductions will be putting on. We are currently seeking a label to release our next album, as well as looking into possibly doing them ourselves.

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Interviews, Press

Reflektionen Interviews Anji of Lovespirals

Anji Bee was interviewed by Sterben von Todsleben for Reflektionen, February 2003

STERBEN: The gothic subculture seemed to be quite fond of Love Spirals Downwards; have you noticed much backlash from them with your first Lovespirals release? Does it matter what the gothic subculture thinks?

ANJI: Surprising little, actually. Before the album came out, there were a few people on our message board making a tiny squabble, but at least one of those has turned into a hard core fan since seeing us play live and buying the album. And the reviews have been overwhelmingly positive, even from Gothic sources. We didn’t really expect the kind of support we’ve received, but are happy to have it. What’s more exciting, however, is when fans of Gothic music express interest in our decidedly not-Gothic songs, many of which are available as mp3s at various sites on the Internet. Ultimately, though, we would prefer to secure a new audience for ourselves, rather than appealing to old fans of Love Spirals Downwards or Projekt Records.

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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.

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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

Interviews

GothGirl Interviews Lovespirals

GothGirl blog interviews Ryan and Anji about the new Lovespirals’ album Windblown Kiss, and their recent tour.

GG: How does ‘Windblown Kiss’ fit into your discography?

RYAN: It’s hard to pinpoint. I just see it as a new album, with a new kind of sound. But that’s something I’ve always tried to do with every album; not copy what I’ve done before but, instead, try to push through to a new place that I’ve never been to.

GG: Has this new album redefined you as a band?

ANJI: I suppose the album has probably redefined us in many ways in the eyes of fans and critics. The array of commentary on ‘Windblown Kiss’ is really diverse, with everyone seemingly of a different opinion as to our genre and/or sound. Some people haven’t heard any of the earlier material that Ryan and I recorded, so their comparisons are to Love Spirals Downwards’ prior albums. Of course, people see LSD in many different ways, depending on which of the albums they’ve heard… What genre was LSD? Were they Goth? Electronica? Ambient? rock? Folk? Who knows? The same exact thing could be said of Lovespirals. We did some drum and bass and downtempo music, then we did some folk/rock/jazz whatever music. Now we’re doing something else. The band is too changeable for strict genre definitions. We just follow our bliss, wherever it may take us.

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Interviews

Lovespirals Interview with DJ Carolee

The following is a transcript of our recent in-studio radio interview at KPSU 1450 AM in Portland, OR.

“A STRANGE CHOICE OF FAVORITES” WITH DJ CAROLEE

DJ CAROLEE: We’re talking with Anji Bee and Ryan Lum, a project recording artist, Love Spirals. As a member of the audience for your Portland show, I have to say one of the songs that I really loved the most… you did a cover of a Billie Holiday tune?
ANJI: Oh no, that was actually our own song.
DJ CAROLEE: It was.
ANJI: It’s just inspired by the music such as Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald.
DJ CAROLEE: Oh you’re kidding! I was telling someone at work today, “Oh, they sound like Billie Holliday.” Or “She sounds like Billie Holliday.”
ANJI: That’s right, I mentioned, I don’t know why, like, “You know, like Billie Holliday,” just to put it out there what kind of jazz it was, as opposed to smooth jazz… Kenny G.
RYAN: Like they wrote in the paper about us. [Referencing the Willamette Weekly article]
ANJI: I was like, “No. It’s bebop jazz! This is the good stuff.” (Laughs)
DJ CAROLEE: Yeah, it’s true. It’s interesting that kind of reaction, the Kenny G. jazz reaction is coming out.
RYAN: He was the only one who said it so far.
ANJI: He must not have heard it, is all I can figure out.
DJ CAROLEE: Yeah, I’ve gotta wonder. ‘Cause that song, to me, that was an amazing moment. I mean, first of all, because I think you made a comment during the show about performing that to a gothic audience? At the same time, I really felt like it was perfect for the audience.
ANJI: Great.

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Interviews

Outsight Radio Hours Interview (2002)

Here’s a partial transcript of the interview Tom Schulte did with Anji recently on his Internet radio show, for those that aren’t able to stream audio. Outsight is a featured archival broadcast of the Music Sojourn site so go listen to it if you can!

Tom: Been enjoying ‘Windblown Kiss.” Been playing it for the audience here. Ya happy with it?

Anji: Yeah, yeah it turned out a lot differently than probably people might have expected, but… You know, we kinda started out one way… at first we were working on a trip hop song, and then we wrote, uh, the first song, “Oh So Long,” and we realized that we were kinda on to something a little different. We just kinda went with it. Made kind of a rock album. With jazz. 

Tom: Yeah, definitely, and, um, some sort of flamenco, soul, folk touches — it’s beyond retro, it’s almost vintage at times.

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Interviews, News, Reviews

Recent Interview & Album Review

Anji was interviewed about Lovespirals by Shaun Hamilton for Chain D.L.K. online zine this week. Craig Gidney, owner of the Ethereality Yahoo! Group, posted an insightful Windblown Kiss review that reads, in part:

Ryan Lum’s Love Spirals Downwards has come a long way from its ethereal gothic roots.  Gone are Suzanne Perry’s wafting vocal glossolalia, the dark Cure-meets-Siouxsie basslines, and the Robin Guthrie guitar atmospherics.  They have been replaced by the smooth-as-silk vocals of Anji Bee; the mysterious Eastern-flavor by dashes of flamenco, lounge, jazz and Brazilian pop, and even –gasp- mainstream pop.  Of course, this transformation has been a long time coming.  Lum has always pushed the envelope in atmospheric music, assimilating electronica, drums and bass along side such core foundations as folk and shoegazer into the mix.  The last LSD album, Flux,  was a successful mix of Massive Attack-style songs and gentle breakbeats, not unlike those heard on the Six Degrees label.  This new incarnation, though, seems to model itself after the sophisticated pop of Everything But the Girl, once and for all ditching the Cocteau Twins blueprint that has dogged the band since its humble beginnings. 

–Craig L. Gidney

Interviews

Chain DLK Webzine Interviews Anji Bee

August 2002, Chain DLK Webzine, Shaun Hamilton

SHAUN: How did you two meet and start working on music together?

ANJI: We met a few times at different places in Los Angeles. We first started talking at a little Projekt Records party that both our bands were invited to. Then we got to know each other more through a series of appearances he made on KUCI, for both my radio show and other DJs’ shows. One afternoon he had me come over to his studio and he showed me a few new songs he was working on. One of those became the instrumental, ‘Beatitude,’ and the other eventually turned into ‘Love Survives.’

The first song he had me do vocals on was the club track, ‘Ecstatic,’ which just has a little ‘oooh ahhh’ sample. Our first song that came out on CD was a remix of “Bittersweet” for Claire Voyant, in late 1999, early 2000, I forget exactly. 1999-2000 was a very transitional time’ We weren’t totally sure where we were headed yet. Ryan was still very immersed in the DJ scene then, so the tunes we were working on were all 10-minute dance tracks — pretty unsuitable as album material. It wasn’t really until 2001 that things clicked into place for us, as far as the album goes.

SHAUN: Have you or Ryan had jazz training, and what are your musical backgrounds?

ANJI: No, neither of us has had any Jazz schooling. Our sax player, Doron, actually does have a degree in Jazz, though! Ryan’s been reading up on Jazz the last year or so. He used to joke that he’d become a Jazz guitarist after he played a year in the NBA, but now he’s already accomplished the former without getting much closer to the latter goal’ (Ha ha!) Both Ryan and I had a few lessons when we were young, but we’re mostly self-taught. He’s been playing guitar for most of his life. I think listening to a wide range of good music, and studying it to find out what makes it work, has been our best training.

SHAUN: Your work seems to revolve around the subject of love. What is your opinion on the state of love in today’s world?

ANJI: I believe that love is the most important thing in the world. Certainly nothing great can be accomplished without love as a motivating factor. Everyone is searching for love, in one way or another, and many are finding unsatisfactory substitutes in our modern world. I don’t think we can ever feel truly whole until we surrender to love ‘ not only love for another person, but for ourselves, and for the world around us, as well.

SHAUN: Any words of advice?

ANJI: Never doubt your ability to grow and improve as a human being. Don’t let negative people get you down. Pursue your dreams and live your life with joy!

Excerpt from the full interview hosted at the ChainDLK site.