Category Archives: Press

Music Tap Praises 'Future Past'

Matt Rowe penned a very positive review of Lovespirals’ latest release for the Music Tap site. It reads, in part:

I’ll say it now, Lovespirals is an undiscovered diamond, cut to a many-faceted perfection in their new album. Future Past is their masterpiece work to date. With Manzarek-like keyboards, a masterful bluesy guitar, and an angelic voice, the 11 tracks that you’ll find on this magnificent surprise are not to be missed.

He goes on to comment about the performances of Ryan and Anji individually, even encouraging the duo to pursue solo endeavors outside of Lovespirals. You’ll have to read the full review on Music Tap.

This Truth Tops Dance Charts

Hot new UK dance music label, Loverush Digital, is about to drop a “Damien.S VS Lovespirals” branded set of remixes of our single, “This Truth,” on February 9th. UK radio and club DJs, however, have already been spinning advanced copies the past few weeks. To our delight, the EP has been blazing up various club charts!

DMC is currently listing “This Truth” at #4 on the UK Club Chart and the World House Chart, #6 on the Club 2009 Test Chart, #10 for the UK Chart, World Commerical Chart, and World Chart plus #16 on the UK Monthly Chart and #18 on the World Monthly Chart.

We’re going up against some pretty steep competition from the likes of Beyonce and Jennifer Hudson, and being a spot ahead of “Single Ladies” on the UK Club is just insane and surreal…

[update: The single went on to reach #2 on the DMC World Trance Chart, #4 on the DMC World House Chart and #8 on the UK Music Week Club Charts!]

Damien.S VS Lovespirals "This Truth" #2 on DMC World Trance Chart
Damien.S VS Lovespirals "This Truth" #2 on DMC World Trance Chart

This Truth (Damien.S VS Lovespirals Radio Edit)


This Truth (Adam Fielding Chilled Out Mix)

Support for the track has been great and we’re excited to be played on shows and stations including Housesssions with Denny Dowd on Juice FM, PH Factor on Energy FM, Club Control with DJ Confusion, and Twilight on Pulse. Reactions have been fantastic, as well. DJs are reporting lots of dancefloor love and even requests!

John McCormick (Deep 6, Fury Murrys, The Hive, Yates) 10/10
This has created one of the biggest buzzes on the floors I’ve seen in ages. Its an enormous winner and packs the floors everytime without fail. Superb mix package. Top stuff all round!

DJ Crispian Aldis (Elemental, Havanah, Paradise) 10/10
This is good and is causing quite a stir in my sets. Loads of fab mixes to choose from. Top track, top label. I can see big things for Loverush in 2009.

Beaker (Berties, Bunters, Divas, Red Square) 9/10
I love the feel to this track, she has such a haunting voice. You can’t help but hear it. It’s such a smooth chill out dance track that works really well.

John J (Club DNA, Liquid Lounge, Wigan Pier) 9/10
LOVIN THIS! Quality vocal trancer with a wicked package of mixers. Fave is Juno Synclair vs Craig Bailey Remix.

Also available digitally via JunoDownload and AudioJelly and XPressBeats

iProng Magazine Lovespirals Artist Feature

The April 2nd “100% Podsafe” issue of iProng Magazine features an interview with Anji discussing Lovespirals, going podsafe, getting into podcasting, music licensing, live performance vs studio recording, and much more. Also included this issue is a great article on eMusic vs Amazon downloads, interviews with fellow podsafe artists Geoff Smith and Natalie Gelman, and an article with Rich Robinson of the Black Crowes, who released their new single to the Podsafe Music Network. By the way, you can check out tons of Lovespirals tracks on the PMN for use on podcasts, internet radio, Second Life DJ sets, and more!

Here’s an excerpt from the interview from iProng Magazine 4/2008:

April 2, 2008: 100% PodSafe Edition, iProng Magazine Artist Feature

For someone who isn’t familiar with Lovespirals, how would you describe it to them?

We write and record all of our music together in our own home studio. As such, our music has a very intimate feel. Our sound doesn’t follow any particular genre model, instead, we play what we feel at the moment. We tend towards very melodic, bittersweet, and dreamy music that focuses on beautiful vocal harmonies and soulful guitar work, with liberal sprinklings of electric piano.

There’s always been a sort of tug of war in Lovespirals between jazzy electronica and folky rock. Each of our releases have come upon a different solution to this tension between the modern and vintage sides of our musical personalities. One the one hand, we both love the old vinyl albums we grew up with as kids, but on the other, we’re drawn to contemporary music and production techniques. The interesting thing about this is that while the casual listener assumes a song like “Caught in the Groove” from Long Way From Home was recorded with a full band, in actuality Ryan programmed the drums using a keyboard controller and samples, the piano is recorded with midi, and the guitars and bass were performed one track at a time in ProTools. The thing is, just because we’re using computer based recording techniques doesn’t mean our music has to sound like it was made with a computer, you know?

Continue reading iProng Magazine Lovespirals Artist Feature

Anji Bee Interview on Podfinder UK

Mini Interview with The Chillcast’s Anji Bee

Anji Bee is the soft, sultry, sexy voice of the Chillcast, and one half of the Lovespirals.

When & why did you begin podcasting?

I used to be a college DJ, hosting several music shows and working in station management for 3 years. After I left, I discovered online radio. I started a Live365 station back in January 2000. Eventually I produced some half hour interview features, such as one with Hungry Lucy in May 2005. Garageband had just begun their free podcast service, so I uploaded it there, too. I followed up with a feature on Lovespirals, and then decided it was high time I did a podcast proper.

My first podcast was Chillin’ with Lovespirals, which launched in early June 2005. The idea was that a podcast would be the perfect way to share information and music from our upcoming new album, Free & Easy. I had already been sharing audio interviews online on sites like Mp3.com and SoundClick for years, so I knew our fans enjoyed hearing us discuss our music. I had a hard time, though, convincing my partner, Ryan Lum, that it was a good idea because there weren’t any band podcasts out there yet and he was worried about our bandwidth. Our first episodes were fairly short because of the bandwidth issue.

Continue reading Anji Bee Interview on Podfinder UK

More Reviews of Lovespirals' 'Long Way From Home' CD

Reviews are still popping up of Lovespirals recent album, Long Way From Home, in partial thanks to the efforts of Ariel PR who helped to push the album when it was released this past October 23rd.

Jason Moore of Opus writes:

Ultimately, Lum and Bee are all about creating a mood with their music, a relaxed and blissed-out vibe that should be no stranger to fans of dreampop, chill-out electronica, and atmospheric pop. This is music for both late night sessions and noon daydreams, for both listening to at work when you need to escape the pressure of the day and at home when you simply need to unwind with a good book and a glass of wine.

Miles Klee said in Hot Indie News:

Bluesy slide guitar work sometimes shades over into Santana-like finger-meandering, and vocalist Anji Bee’s layered voice paints bright glaze over already dreamy arrangements. It’s as though the glancing disaffection of 80’s and 90’s dream-poppers has been filtered through an AM radio, a mutation that works by dint of sounding completely natural on an evolutionary view.

From the Green Arrow Radio blog:

More than melancholic music, there is a sense that they traveled with you on similar & familiar roads with the radio tuned to the same left of the dial station in the middle of wherever. After nearly a decade of artistic collaboration between singer/songwriter, Anji Bee, & multi instrumentalist & producer, Ryan Lum, it is no wonder that they have managed to put together an album of answers to questions yet asked with a subtle sultry sense of sound security.

The Celebrity Cafe‘s Ray Anderson mused:

Empty and sad, but of full of emotion, their album Long Way from Home is medicine for those that dig the alternative. How can you take a gut-wrenching classic like “Motherless Child” and make it sadder? Let the “Lovespirals” get a hold of it. It’s easy to fall into the loose, country-tinged groove of “Caught in a Groove” and let your soul be taken for a ride. By the time the “upbeat” “Lovelight” comes on, you won’t mind being “A Long Way from Home,” and I think you’ll want to stay there.

Read or written a great review of Lovespirals? Then post a link here, by all mean!

Solipsistic NATION Lovespirals Feature

In honor of Valentine’s Day, the excellent Solipsistic NATION podcast is featuring Lovespirals! Bazooka Joe interviews Ryan and Anji via Skype about the band’s evolving sound, their musical history, the effect of technology on the band, the duo’s songwriting process, and much more. Interspersed with the interview are 7 full length songs — including several special permissions (non-podsafe) tracks — and a few of Anji’s side projects.

Anji Bee featured on Behind the Monitor

Woman Behind the Monitor (and the Mic): Anji Bee

“The Sexiest Voice in Podcasting” Anji Bee of the Chillcast talks about the show and her double life as both podcaster and musician.

TREVOR: How did the Chillcast get its start?

ANJI: I guess you could say The Chillcast got its start with college radio DJ’ing. After 3 years of doing various shows and working in management at a college radio station, I was pretty well hooked. Then I discovered Internet radio, and started creating both live and prerecorded Internet radio content – including interviews with indie bands like Hungry Lucy and Sunburn in Cyprus. Eventually podcasts were invented, and I put 2 and 2 together. Podcasting was better than radio because listeners could tune in whenever was most convenient for them – which seemed really revolutionary! My first podcast was actually Chillin’ with Lovespirals, which Ryan and I launched to help promote our 2nd album, Free & Easy. Shortly after, I started getting permissions from indie band friends to create a weekly music show podcast – because you have to understand that at this time the podsafe music movement was barely getting started! Adam Curry had just begun his Podsafe Music Network — which is actually how he and I met and became friends, when Lovespirals joined the site. Adam played us on the Daily Source Code, and then we started talking back and forth on his podcast about Creative Commons vs BMI and all those kinds of things. To make a long story a bit shorter, I put together a few fledgling episodes of The Chillcast, hosting them on the Internet Archive site and C.C. Chapman, who was really active with PodShow at the time, pitched the show to Adam and PodShow management, and I was signed as one of the first group of podcasters to the new PodShow Podcast Network.

Continue reading Anji Bee featured on Behind the Monitor

Lovespirals are special guests on The Pod 5 podcast

This week’s The Pod 5 show includes Ryan and Anji of Lovespirals as special guests, along with Matthew Ebel and Anji’s fellow ShowGirl, Share Ross, for a discussion of the future of the recording industry. Topics include CDs vs Mp3s, major vs indie labels vs self-released, Radiohead scaring the music industry, and much more fun and madness!

[audio:http://media.podshow.com/media/15440/episodes/89557/podfive-89557-12-03-2007_pshow_211537.mp3]

Download Pod 5 Episode 3 MP3

‘Long Way From Home’ Feature Podcast

In this extended podcast episode, Anji and Ryan play each song from their new album Long Way From Home as they discuss how the album was created. In this special behind-the-scenes podcast, the duo talk about the album’s influences, song writing, production secrets, and personal anecdotes. This feature gives you great peek into the album!

Podcast Links:

Continue reading ‘Long Way From Home’ Feature Podcast

Music Critics Weigh in on Lovespirals' Long Way From Home

Reviews are starting to come in for Lovespirals new album, Long Way From Home, and the critics have been kind.

All Music Guide‘s Ned Raggett writes,

For their third album as Lovespirals, Anji Bee and Ryan Lum again create a lush series of songs that synthesizes disparate influences into a warm, enveloping listen.

Matthew Johnson of Re:Gen Magazine writes,

It’s not an understatement to call Long Way from Home the duo’s most accomplished work up to date; as enjoyable as their previous explorations of laidback electronica and jazz fusion have been, this album captures Lum and Bee’s warm musical chemistry in a way that previous releases only hinted at.

Matt Rowe of MusicTap.net writes,

From the band’s early years as Love Spirals Downwards — with a vocalist all but forgotten for Anji Bee’s lovely, dreamy, and expansive vocal pleasantries — to their current album, Lovespirals have always been a band of change. Their latest, the wonderfully titled Long Way From Home, is one of superior work and can easily rank as the band’s best work in either incarnation.

cadencerevolution.com podcast blogs:

It’s very rare these days to come across an entire CD which you will listen to over and over from beginning to end non-stop, and even rarer to find one which makes you want to grab everyone you know and tell them “you must listen to this.” However such is the case with the third release, Long Way Home, from the California based duo Lovespirals.

Come hear what all the fuss is about at lovespirals.com/longway!

Re:Gen Magazine: Long Way From Home

long_way_200
Long Way From Home (2007)

Matthew Johnson reviews Long Way From Home for Re:Gen Magazine, 11/29/2007

On their third album, Lovespirals shift away from overt electronica in favor of beautiful, understated folk and blues ballads.

If sophomore album Free and Easy saw Lovespirals’ sound at its biggest, Long Way from Home is the duo’s most intimate, forsaking house beats and jazz flourishes for understated slide guitar and acoustic strums. Ryan Lum’s production is more mature than ever before; unless you really listen for it, you won’t be able to tell that he plays and records all the instruments himself – maybe not even then – and the drums sound warm and clear, betraying no hint of sampler or sequencer. Instead, Lum lets his arrangements take center stage, with emotive guitar solos harmonizing with electric organ on the bluesy ballad “Once in a Blue Moon” and relaxed acoustic strums highlighting jazzy piano chords on “Nocturnal Daze.” Anji Bee’s vocals are beautifully languid, the sweetness swathed in melancholy on the plaintive “Caught in the Groove,” adorned by floating background harmonies on “Treading the Water,” and sensual yet dreary on the pair’s stark rendition of classic spiritual “Motherless Child.” Fans of the pair’s more overtly romantic material will appreciate unabashed love song “This Truth,” and there’s even a hint of the ethereal dreaminess of Lum’s previous project, Love Spirals Downwards, on the fuzzy overlapping guitar tones and meandering vocals of “Sundrenched” and “Lazy Love Days.” It’s not an understatement to call Long Way from Home the duo’s most accomplished work up to date; as enjoyable as their previous explorations of laidback electronica and jazz fusion have been, this album captures Lum and Bee’s warm musical chemistry in a way that previous releases only hinted at.

View the original review at Re:Gen Magazine.

Music Tap's Featured Artist, December 2007

Matt Rowe reviews Long Way From Home for Music Tap, 11/28/2007

The evolution of Lovespirals into the band that they are today has been a long road. From the band’s early years as Love Spirals Downwards — with a vocalist all-but-forgotten for Anji Bee’s lovely, dreamy, and expansive vocal pleasantries — to their current album, Lovespirals have always been a band of change. Their latest, the wonderfully titled Long Way From Home, is one of superior work and can easily rank as the band’s best work in either incarnation.

Still a part of the Dream-Pop sound that formed them, the Anji Bee years of Lovespirals have been an essential element for the band. With her ability to wrap around Ryan Lum’s musical explorations, Lovespirals is not afraid of trying on new clothes, framing them in gorgeous soft tones of various flavours. The album begins with a “career-best” blues song that accentuates the album’s direction. “Caught in the Groove” is a beautifully produced, dream-blues (if I may coin the phrase) song. Using a song as a metaphor for the deterioration of a relationship, this captivating tune is made all the more extraordinary by Lum’s blues guitar.

That same bluesy guitar shows up in “Once in a Blue Moon, and “Nocturnal Daze.” Ryan Lum’s guitar leads have a distinct ’70s feel throughout the album. Some songs recall the past musical history of the band. “Sundrenched” lends itself to the stream of that past. The album closes with the excellent musically and lyrically sex-soaked “Lazy Love Days.”

The needle may be “caught in the groove” but, for me, that’s a good thing where this album is concerned.

View the original post at MusicTap.net