While in Portland, we hooked up with Carolee, a new DJ at Portland State University’s college radio station. She was nice enough to burn us a CD of the interview and acoustic set. I edited the interview down from a half hour to 14 minutes, and added in backing music, to put up on Mp3.com for everyone to hear. That should go up pretty quickly, so keep your eye out at http://www.mp3.com/lovespirals. Maybe later I’ll try to put up one of the acoustic songs we did, too.

Poor Carolee was so nervous having us up! I guess we were the first band she’s had to the station, so it was all new for her. I’m used to college radio from my 3 years at KUCI. Ryan’s been at quite a number of college stations (including KUCI) that it’s old hat for him, as well. So it was probably good that we were the band to break her in. : ) Oh yeah, she mentioned on air that she’d read our journal, so if you’re reading right now, Carolee — HI!

There was one downer moment in the tour I forgot to mention… In Oregon, the Willamette Weekly printed the most preposterous preview of our show possible! We were stunned to read this guy’s outrageously incorrect summation of our sound:

Lovespirals evolved from it’s former incarnation — Love Spirals Downward[sic], a perfectly listenable Cocteau Twins clone — into a shimmery, soft-focus New Age monster who think Kenny G saxophone and smooth-jazz piano are signifers of a newfound maturity. No dice.

What???? We don’t even use piano in our music – unless you count the one song with funky Rhodes electric piano, which hardly qualifies as “smooth-jazz” or “new age”!!! Doron is certainly not like Kenny G., and he wasn’t on the tour, anyway… Gads! Even the promoter of the Portland show was expecting the worst after reading that review; he came up to us right after we finished playing to say that we were much, much better than he expected, and we “didn’t sound jazz at all!” Haha!

Man, you drive all the way out from L.A. to do a special performance, and get totally panned before you even arrive. Thanks a lot, John Graham, you jerk!!!

Lovespirals have returned from their West Coast mini tour with Mira, and are busy scheduling additional dates for this year. So far, Los Angeles has been added for October 2nd, at the Knitting Factory. The band plans to include saxist, Doron Orenstein, for this date.

DJ Victoria Star, of KZSC in Santa Cruz, CA wrote the following review of the first show date:

San Francisco Projekt fans were given a spectacular treat last night when artists Mira and Lovespirals joined together for an evening of musical bliss at The Pound.

Once again changing musical directions, Anji Bee and Ryan Lum presented their lush new sound as a taunting and swanky invitation to sing along. Taking the stage with a smile that never left her face, Anji’s vocal mastery was particularly poignant on new tracks “Oh So Long” and “Swollen Sea.”

The mini tour is over, and boy, are we exhausted. So much driving! The shows all went well, as did the radio interview and show. We saw a lot of friends and family along the way, and made a few new friends. Some CDs were sold, fans made, sights seen, and the like.

Sadly, when we returned home, my beloved iMac would not power up. I do all the band work from my iMac, so this is very bad news. We took it to the local Apple store, and we’re praying that the Geniuses there can mend it back to health. If not, we’ll have to have the data transferred out onto another computer… But let’s keep our fingers crossed that it doesn’t come to that! Send my iMac your prayers!

Mp3.com continues their strange love affair with Anji this week, as they’ve added a link to her on their front page, along side Eve and Alicia Keyes.

A Real Audio file of the recent interview with Anji for the Outsight Radio Hours is now online at Music Sojourn . She and Tom Shulte discuss Windblown Kiss, jazz, vinyl collecting, and more.

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 insighful Windblown Kiss review.

A rare message from me, Ryan! We leave in one week for our west coast tour. If you’re nearby, I hope you’ll make it out to see us. It’s pretty rare that we do shows, and there’s no telling when we’ll be back. These shows will be a little different from our projekt show in Philadelphia that we did a few months back. Doron, our tenor sax player won’t be there, so I’ll be stepping it up at the guitar.

Also, we’re playing with fellow projekt band Mira, who we met in Philadelphia. Cool cats and even cooler music. So it should be a fun few days on the road.

The Swiss chill-out comp, Cool Terrasse, was just released by CH Musiq this month. It features a special radio edit of Lovespirals’ atmo Drum n Bass song, “Ecstatic,” as well as 11 other jazzy or ethnic flavored down tempo electronica tracks by various international artists. It is available for sale online for $15 USD.

Two new online reviews, both quirkier than the average review, have gone online. Sterben, of Reflektionen, writes “Together they create an erotic alchemy, turning music into great works of passion and sensuality.” Dave, of Nefarious Entertainment Magazine says, “If you’re out of the habit of defying gravity and free-floating around in the sky, try slipping Windblown Kiss into your CD player and laying back with your eyes closed.” [click links for full review]

Mp3.com is currently featuring Anji on their popular Women of Mp3.com station, as well as the Hot Artist of the Month Spotlight. Jianda Johnson recently interviewed Anji about her musical career, including both Lovespirals and side collaborations. Read — and hear — more at the following URLs:

Women of Mp3.com

Mp3.com Interview: Anji Bee

Hot Artist Spotlight – Easy Listening