Just came across the funniest mention of us in a Devics review online.

Slow, teary-eyed gothic jazz was an inevitability as darkwave, dream pop, and shoegazing became further and further intertwined. Lovespirals’ “Windblown Kiss” of 2002 was heralded as the style’s official birth and fulfilled the lifelong dreams of darkwave and lounge lovers like myself by blending the melancholy, ethereal vocals of the former with the breezy, slow sway of the latter.

Even though I have heard one or two other people make similar mention, I can’t get used to the idea that anyone would still think we’re Gothic, in addition to Jazz. It’s just too crazy! Why not “Dark Jazz” at least? LOL.

Ha Ha! First Ryan invents “Gothic Trip Hop” (Flux) and now “Gothic Jazz” (Windblown Kiss). I suppose next we’ll be “Gothic Soul”? No… People can’t possibly try to lump our new music in with Gothic. Can they?

Brazilian music site, FiberOnline, is currently running an interview/ article with Anji by Isabel Geo, discussing Lovespirals past and present. Read here or listen to 2 tracks at FiberOnline’s Lovespirals’ artist page (In Portuguese).

Sometimes I get frustrated by how much genre identity has pervaded the music world. It seems like nowadays bands are forced into taking on a genre niche to be accepted anywhere. Why can’t we just make/listen to music that we like and enjoy, without having to worry about pigeon-holing everything?

The press have always tried to stick music into boxes, for sure, and the fans have been doing it for awhile, but it feels like now even the bands themselves need to jump on some bandwagon or other to even gain label acceptance, never mind the fans or the press!

Lovespirals do not want to embrace any one genre. We are multifacted people with various music interests. Sometimes we feel upbeat and dancy, other times soulful or bluesy. Sometimes we wanna rock, sometimes we wanna groove, sometimes we wanna romance it old school jazz style. Why should we hold ourselves back?

A cool new idea in music distribution, Kolo: an independent sound library puts together online music compilations. Typically, they include hi-res 192kbps mp3 files of each song, a DJ mixed set of the material, plus downloadable artwork for the CD. After a brief hiatus this summer, they’re back with a groovy chill-out set, including Lovespirals’ “Our Nights.”

On one of our recent outings of buying used vinyl albums, we picked up Talk Talk’s album The Colour of Spring. We finally had the chance to give it a good listen the other night, and damn was it good!

For those who remember the band as just a new wave synth pop band, well, maybe that could be said of their first album or two, but they evolved a lot with each release.

The Colour of Spring is a great and very hard to classify album. It’s soulful, with hints of jazz, and quite ethereal at times. The Hammond organ is just amazing. I swear I can hear the birth of the Manchester sound coming from this record.

Next I want to pick up the album they released after this, Spirit of Eden, where they took a more stripped down, improvised approach.

People are starting to ask about a new album, but we’re just not quite there yet. A new style is coalescing for us, though, which is quite exciting. We’ve been perfecting older song ideas, which I’ve found really satisfying. Now we’re starting to work on brand new material. I have a big backlog of lyrical and melodic ideas, so we just have to start putting those to music one at a time.

The newest song will be a little airier, more musically spacious, to give Ry some room to really dig into guitar work, if he likes. I kinda feel like I’ve been monopolizing the tunes recently with lyrics. Heh heh. So much for Ryan’s old credo of non meaning in his music!

Lovespirals’ semi-official photographer, Susan Jennings, recently launched an online store at IncisionCandy.com offering a plethora of pleasing images, including the landscapes used in the design of Windblown Kiss. Additional works, available in frameable prints or notecards, were featured on Projekt releases including From Across This Grey Land 3, A Day in the Stark Corner, and Ardor. Beautiful photographs, beautiful site; well worth a look!

Things have been rather slow around here, but are slowly picking up. We’ve got a couple of compilations starting to line up, using old cuts. Someone has been talking to us about doing a show in Hawaii, which would be awesome. Percy Howard is sending me a CDR of the song he wants me to come out and sing for him. We’ve got 4 solid mixes of new tracks now, too.

Ryan’s been playing Kelly Slater Pro Surfer quite a bit, which has inspired him to get back into drum ‘n’ bass production. There’s a couple Rollerball tracks on the game that sound like a cross between our stuff from ’99 with our recent stuff. It could be fun to go back and revisit some of our old ideas updated with our new jazz knowledge.

Just wish we weren’t so busy, so we could get into the studio again! The past two weeks have been hellish.

Happy to report that we’ve been working on music again.

The new “Love Survives” is nearly complete, and it’s actually grown quite a bit from the old version. I love the new ideas I came up with for the chorus, and Ryan’s new bridge instrumentation! It’s much funkier and light hearted this time around. Ha ha, I still remember the first time Gabe heard the demo, his response was “Pretty dark!” We’re not interested in being dark or creepy or any of that. We’d prefer to be light and happy.

So the new album seems to be shaping up pretty well. We’ve got: Hand in Hand, Love Survives, Just Trouble, Walk Away, perhaps Sandcastles — if we polish it up a bit. There’s been some other songs tossed around the past year that should work out. I’m excited.

Nothing much exciting has been going on since we got back from Mexico. I’m starting to miss performing! Our current plan is to re-record “Love Survives” in 24 bit format. I guess the song will probably come out a bit different this time, but nothing as drastic as our redo of “Hand in Hand.” We’ve got a lot of other half-formed song ideas that we’ve been working on the past year. I look forward to having the time to dedicate to diving into the studio for days and weeks on end, fleshing out and perfecting them all. It will be an exciting time. For now, though, I simply dream…

The photo section has been redesigned and updated with lots of lovely new photos including some great out-take shots from the Windblown Kiss promo photos by Susan Jennings. The interview section has been updated with new links and better content descriptions. Enjoy!

Hasn’t been a whole lot to post about since the Mexico tour… Finally had a bit of time to slow down after a whirlwind year for the band. Lovespirals played as many live shows in one year as Love Spirals Downwards did in their whole 8 year history. Not to say that’s a lot, but it puts it in perspective. Chances are good that we’ll continue to play live much more regularly from now on, since we actually enjoyed ourselves with it. : )

Over the past month or so I transferred a number of audio interviews to digital format and put them up on mp3.com/lovespiralsdownwards. (note: now on soundclick.com/lovespiralsdownwards) Its funny to hear the old interviews with Ryan and I before I was in the band. Its even funnier to hear the older interviews with Ryan and Suzanne squabbling!