Amazon.com is now offering a high quality mp3 file of Lovespirals’ song, “Our Nights” from Windblown Kiss in their Free Download area, the under Digital Discoveries section.
Mexico, here we come!
Well, it’s finally finalized. We’ll be going to Mexico next month for 3 shows and a day of promotion. Apparently we’ll be interviewed for TV and newspapers. Sounds very busy, all in all. I hope we’ll still have time to enjoy the 3 cities we’re visiting. Ryan’s told me so much about Mexico City. He’s happy to be able to see a few new places this trip. Guanajuanto is said to be very beautiful. The club in Leon looks very, very nice too! Should be a good time.
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, WRTULovespirals 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
Mexico City Area Tour
Plans are still underway for us to do a few shows in and around Mexico City next month. It is unnerving waiting until the last moment like this, but our manager assures us it is happening. He even asked us for some video footage to use in television promotions — but we don’t have any! Right now, talk is that we’ll do Mexico City, Guanajuato, and now possibly Morelia, as well. Leon was also asking about us. The show dates fall between the 12th and 15th so far. Looks like it will be a full week!
Most like LSD
I was just thinking about how funny it is that many of our reviews have claimed that our album is largely unlike any of the Love Spirals Downwards albums, aside from one song — but that “one song” is always a different song! Some claim the song “most like LSD” is “Swollen Sea,” others “You Girl,” or “He Calls Me,” yet others claim it’s “Windblown Kiss,” or “Dejame” (which is the one I figured would be cited). So, if all of these people are to be believed, then actually about half of our album sounds pretty darned close to Love Spirals Downwards. Yet, still, most people seem to be in agreement that Lovespirals are really nothing like LSD. How can that be true?
The one thing that really bugs me is how many people want to tag it as a Jazz album, when it so obviously isn’t. I mean, come on — none of the songs listed above are even Jazz songs, and neither are the two songs with Sean, or really even “Oh So Long,” since that’s Blues. “Our Nights” is not truly Jazz, either. In fact, there is only 1 true Jazz song “I Can’t See You,” and we saved that ’til last. Sheesh! Throw in a smattering of saxophone riffs and Jazz guitar chords and suddenly you’re JAZZ . PUH-LEASE!
Le Sacre Feu
Radio Reflektionen is currently hosting a streaming online radio
program assembled by Anji, called “From Dusk to
Dawn”. Featuring 4 hours of 56kbps mp3s, the show
encompasses many of Anji and Lovespirals’ musical inspirations
as well as their own music, and music by friends, peers, and
labelmates. This program will be on continuous loop for
approximately one month.
Exclusive 1sound Mp3
Rod Underhill, formerly of Mp3.com, is launching a brand new site called 1sound.com with streaming and downloadable music content, free blogs and much more. “Love Survives” is currently featured on their front page, but, more excitingly, Lovespirals have included a never before heard track on their artist page. Come listen to “One More” – only on 1sound!
Break downs
A few folks have written or posted, asking us about our so-called “vacation at home” that Ryan mentioned we’d take after our L.A. show. Others just wonder in general what’s going on with Ryan, since he hasn’t posted in a bit. Well, let me just tell ya that he’s been busy as heck trouble shooting the iMac and trying to fix various broken down things the past few weeks. They say ‘when it rains, it pours’ and that must be true! We don’t know if we have a curse on us or what, but just about anything mechanical we touch seems to be breaking down, from effects units, to cars, to dryers. Blech!
One day we’ll have a clear shot to record some music again.
Knitting Factory
Wow! The Knitting Factory is a great venue; beautiful stage, great sound, super nice crew — top notch, all the way around. Our show was very intimate, with lots of friends in the audience, so it was really fun. It was nice to have Doron join us on stage again, too! We were much tighter this time around, so he didn’t blow us off the stage, like at Projekt Fest, heh heh heh. All in all, it’s nice we saved L.A. til last, as it was a nice way to end our little West Coast tour.
We plan to chill on live shows for awhile, so we can get back into the studio to record the many song ideas we’ve had since “Windblown Kiss” came out. Playing live is fun, but writing and recording is the thing that really keeps us excited.
Ipso Facto
The in-store acoustic show last night went well. I’d say that just the right amount of people showed up. The store was nicely filled, but not too packed. It was good to see Bob and Terri, from Ipso, again. We also saw Gary and Dach, both of whom I know from way back when at KUCI. It was a good crowd all the way around.
It was cool to see Audra perform acoustic. Bart borrowed Ryan’s steel string guitar, which sounded quite nice with Bret’s voice. After the show we were talking with them about doing a show together in Arizona. Bart was saying that we should have played a song together, so I suggested we do that in AZ. Today it occured to me that Bret and I could do one of the duets together; maybe “You are the Gun.” That could be cool.
Budget Projekt Comp CDs
Projekt just released 2 new budget priced compilations in conjuction with major chain stores to introduce the music of their label. For Hot Topic, there is Projekt:Gothic, including Lovespirals’ song, “Swollen Sea.” The Arbitrary Width of Shadows, featuring Lovespirals’ “Dejame,” was created for Borders.
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.