Category Archives: Press

Blog, Press

Lovespirals 2004 Biography/Discography

We’ve been sending out demos of some of our new dance and downtempo tracks to various labels, just to see if there’s any interest for compilations, singles, or even a full album. This is the latest bio to go along with the the tracks:

Since 1999, producer/musician Ryan Lum and singer/songwriter, Anji Bee have made an unlikely marriage of dusty vinyl classics to sparkling new CDs, informed by a lingering affair with Jazz. Familiar, yet exotic, the sounds and styles of this creative duo guide modern electronic composition in a more organic direction, forsaking simplistic sample loop based production in favor of traditional song writing and performance.

The interplay of Bee’s sensual vocals and Lum’s emotive guitar playing – given equal importance with the beats — illustrate their love of melody in song craft; something all too often missing in electronica music.  From track to track, and even within each tune itself, the duo culls their favorite aspects of music past and present – those most beautiful, soulful, haunting, or groovy – to create their own unique flavor; fresh and tasty.

Lum and Bee, working under the moniker, Lovespirals, have released various compilation tracks, downloadable singles, and even an album, Windblown Kiss (for indie Projekt Records), and have also performed all across North America with a semi-live set featuring guitar, sax, and vocals over a backing track on laptop. Lum has also appeared in Los Angeles and San Francisco clubs with traditional DJ sets, often including dub plates of their material.

If you are seeking music for the mind and soul, as well as the body, then Lovespirals are for you.

And while I’m at it, here’s our current discography:

DISCOGRAPHY:

(2000) Claire Voyant – Time Again – Metropolis Records “Bittersweet (LSD Mix)”
(2001) V/A – Chill Out in the City – Water Music Records “Beatitude”
(2001) V/A – Chill-Out Lounge v. 2 – Water Music Records “Hand in Hand (Radio Edit)”
(2001) Lovespirals – Ecstatic EP – MP3.com
(2001) V/A – Excelsis v.3: A Prelude – Projekt Records “Aspenglow”
(2002) V/A – Mondisk: A Celebration of 13 Years – Monitor Records “Hand in Hand”
(2002) Lovespirals – Windblown Kiss – Projekt Records
(2002) V/A – The Arbitrary Width of Shadows– – Hot Topic “Dejame”
(2002) V/A – A Dark Noel – Hot Topic “Aspenglow”

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.

Continue reading Reflektionen Interviews Anji of Lovespirals →
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!

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

Reviews

Ritual Reviews Windblown Kiss

A short review of our album appeared in Ritual Magazine on this list of Audioglobe distribution releases. Translated from Italian, it reads”

‘Windblown Kiss’ is the debut album from Lovespirals, a collaborative project between Ryan Lum of the legendary Love Spirals Downwards and singer-songwriter Anji Bee. The sensual interplay of Lum’s dreamy guitar and Bee’s vocal harmonies creates a magical atmosphere. ‘Windblown Kiss’ celebrates a creative anachronism; past and future collide to create a masterpiece.

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.

Continue reading GothGirl Interviews Lovespirals →
Press, Reviews

Splendid Zine Reviews Windblown Kiss

George Zehora has written a cheeky little review of Windblown Kiss for the online zine, Splendid:

It’s no accident that the band’s name sounds vaguely familiar — Lovespirals features guitarist Ryan Lum, late of goth faves Love Spirals Downwards, teamed with vocalist/instrumentalist Anji Bee. The name change isn’t gratuitous, either, for while Lum’s LSD work thrived on ethereal gloominess, Windblown Kiss is going up, up, up. It’s a languid, shimmering pop album — yes, pop — that’s far better suited to breezy beach houses and billowing white linen curtains than introspective poetry and gothic architecture.

Bee and Lum have distinguished themselves with a truly elegant work that belies their youthful looks. It’s as polished and professional as most indiepop wants to be, and refreshingly free of the overwrought lyrical imagery favored by the doom and gloom set. Lum’s guitar work (he’s credited with an impressive array of six and 12-string instruments) is expressive and moving, while Bee’s vocals — in English, French, Spanish and German — are distinctive without being showy. Eden’s Sean Bowley adds additional guitar muscle, as well as Elvis-like male vocal counterpoints on a couple of tracks, and Doren Orenstein (Frecoe) provides a bit of sax, which contributes, for better or worse, to the disc’s intermittent New Age vibe.

There’s a little loneliness (“Oh So Long”) and darkness (“Swollen Sea”) — that’s the stuff that sells, after all — but it’s balanced by the overall happiness of the music. And is it my imagination, or is “He Calls Me” pretty much a Christian rock (or at least deity-related-rock) song?

All told, this is a satisfying, surprisingly upbeat effort that’s likely to cause a fair amount of upheaval among LSD’s fan base. Then again, perhaps the time is right for a romantic album that doesn’t have a Romeo and Juliet ending.

For the record, the “He Calls Me” lyrics were actually inspired by a late-night listening session of John Coltrane’s classic album, A Love Supreme.

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.

Continue reading Lovespirals Interview with DJ Carolee →
News, Press, Reviews

New 'Windblown Kiss' Reviews

A number of positive reviews have gone online at the following music sites:

JazzReview.com: “With a touch of soft blues and world music motifs, this entry into the smooth jazz category is a surefire hit and should appeal to a wide listening audience. The music is refreshingly original and likeable, enjoyable in all ways. Ryan Lum is a master of guitar, his techniques fresh and pleasant, and the sensual vocals of Anji Bee perfectly reflect the high quality of the musical compositions. Windblown Kiss is a magical listening experience, and filled with sensitivity and beautiful soft jazz sounds. Lovespirals is topnotch.”

AmbientTrance.org: “What’s in a name-change? Just by dropping the ballast of “downwards” from the previous moniker, Lovespirals drifts upward into the light (and surprisingly “straight”) musical forms which float like a Windblown Kiss. Rather than prior scenes of swirly guitartronic etherality, Ryan Lum with new vocalist, Anji Bee, spin up sweet, bouncy, loungey songs which shift between various flavors of exotica, often with nostalgic airs. Lovespirals soars on Darkwave’s lightest mists, arising with only a few shadows tainting the warmth and intimacy of Windblown Kiss. So nicely done I don’t much flinch at the “normalcy” as it’s obscured by lush artistry and sensuality. “

MusicReviewer.com: “Founder and long time force behind Projekt band Love Spirals Downwards, Ryan Lum has a new partner, a new band name, and a new style. Leaving long time partner Suzanne Perry — and quite a bit of the Love Spirals Downwards formula — behind, Lum and Bee have come up with an album that grabs you from the first note. Anji Bee has an incredible voice that moves from sultry to sensual to surreal to earthy, that winds its way around the guitar work of Ryan Lum like smoke. Where Perry always sounded sweet and ethereal no matter what she was singing, Bee showcases a wide variety of vocal styling, which, in my opinion, gives the duo much greater latitude on this and future albums. I totally respect what Lum and Bee are trying to put across here and I think this partnership may go much farther than Love Spirals Downwards did – and that’s saying a lot!”

GothicVixen.net: “A strange blend of diverse cultural influences, Windblown Kiss is an eclectic collection of gothic-flavored world music, featuring vocals from Anji Bee and the songwriting and instrumentation of Ryan Lum… Overall, the album is engaging, and successful in creating a dark and dreamy mood. Anji Bee handles both lead and backing vocals with equal grace, displaying excellent range and control. Lum’s songwriting continues to improve, making this release perhaps his most impressive to date, and his guitar work is precise and crisp throughout. More importantly, the musical chemistry between the artists is obvious, more so than in Lum’s previous work with Suzanne Perry in Love Spirals Downwards. Spanning four languages, more than a dozen instruments, and too many cultures to count, Windblown Kiss is a definite must-have for fans of Love Spirals Downwards, other Projekt releases, and world music.”