Lovespirals
Encyclopedia
Lovespirals is a US Dream pop
Dream pop
Dream pop is a subgenre of alternative rock that originated in the United Kingdom in the mid-1980s, when bands like The Passions, Dif Juz, Lowlife and A.R. Kane began fusing post-punk and ethereal experiments with bittersweet pop melodies into dreamy, sensual soundscapes. The term was almost...

 and Electronica
Electronica
Electronica includes a wide range of contemporary electronic music designed for a wide range of uses, including foreground listening, some forms of dancing, and background music for other activities; however, unlike electronic dance music, it is not specifically made for dancing...

 band from Southern California
Southern California
Southern California is a megaregion, or megapolitan area, in the southern area of the U.S. state of California. Large urban areas include Greater Los Angeles and Greater San Diego. The urban area stretches along the coast from Ventura through the Southland and Inland Empire to San Diego...

 featuring multi-instrumentalist/producer, Ryan Lum, and lyricist/vocalist, Anji Bee
Anji Bee
Anji Bee is a vocalist/lyricist, podcaster, former college radio DJ, and music journalist from Los Angeles. Bee is best known as the vocalist and front person of the band, Lovespirals, and the hostess and producer of music show, The Chillcast with Anji Bee....

.

History

The origins of Lovespirals began with a 1998 side project of Lum's Projekt Records
Projekt Records
This is the article for the record label. You might be looking for Pro-jekt, ProjeKct, Project Pitchfork, or Projekt RevolutionProjekt is a Brooklyn, New York-based independent record label specializing in gothic rock, ambient, ethereal, darkwave, shoegaze, dream-pop, and dark cabaret created by...

 band, Love Spirals Downwards
Love Spirals Downwards
Love Spirals Downwards was an ethereal darkwave, dream pop, Atmospheric drum'n'bass and electronica recording act from California.-History:Love Spirals Downwards was begun by multi-instrumentalist Ryan Lum and then-girlfriend Suzanne Perry. In 1991, Lum and Perry recorded a demo, which led to a...

  The new outfit found Lum teaming up with Doron Orenstein and Gabriel D. Vine, of Subliminal Records
Subliminal (record label)
Subliminal is a New Jersey-based record label that mostly records house music. Founded by Erick Morillo, it is one of the most renowned record labels on the house scene, particularly in the US....

 duo, Monkey Bars, for the instrumental track, "Beatitude." Bee joined in as vocalist soon after.

At first, Lovespirals' music picked up where Lum left off with Flux
Flux (album)
Flux is the fourth album by Love Spirals Downwards, an Ethereal band on the US record label, Projekt. It is stylistically quite different from their previous albums, and is more in line with the atmospheric drum'n'bass of artists on Good Looking Records....

, the final Love Spirals Downwards' studio album, creating Drum and Bass
Drum and bass
Drum and bass is a type of electronic music which emerged in the late 1980s. The genre is characterized by fast breakbeats , with heavy bass and sub-bass lines...

 and Downtempo
Downtempo
Downtempo is a laid-back electronic music style similar to ambient music, but usually with a beat or groove unlike the beatless forms of Ambient music. The beat is sometimes made from loops that have a hypnotic feeling...

 compositions. The first song officially released to CD was a Jazzstep remix of Claire Voyant
Claire Voyant
Claire Voyant is a dream pop, darkwave, ethereal wave band from Sacramento, California. The trio were once part of a 5-piece band called Murmur, which split over creative differences...

's "Bittersweet," for Time Again: A Collection of Remixes, in April 2000. The remix was attributed to Love Spirals Downwards, though the song was composed by Lum and Bee, with saxophone contributions by Orenstein.

In July 2000, the band launched an Mp3.com
MP3.com
MP3.com is a web site operated by CNET Networks providing information about digital music and artists, songs, services, community, and technologies. It is probably better known for its original incarnation, as a legal, free music-sharing service, popular with independent musicians for promoting...

 page under the name "Lovespirals" which included the first song featuring Bee's vocals, "Ecstatic." They followed up with a second digital single called "Hand in Hand" in August. These tracks were pressed to acetate for Lum's use in DJ sets during promotions for the Love Spirals Downwards career retrospective CD, Temporal: A Collection of Music Past & Present
Temporal (album)
Temporal is collection of music by Love Spirals Downwards, an Ethereal band on the US record label, Projekt. It includes several previously unreleased songs.-Track listing:# Alicia – 4:48 –...

, released earlier that year. In 2001, these songs were released via an Mp3.com Enhanced CDR called the Ecstatic EP, along with a new track called "Spanning Time," and their Claire Voyant remix. StarVox Magazine listed the Ecstatic EP and Time Again in their Top 10 Staff Favorites of 2001, citing Lovespirals and Claire Voyant's "triphop-influenced grooves" as "Goth's Next Big Thing." Mp3.com featured the EP in their "Hot Artist Spotlight" on January 25, 2002, stating:
For those fans of Good Looking Records
Good Looking Records
Good Looking Records is a Jungle/drum & bass record label, formed in the early nineties by pioneering DJ/producer LTJ Bukem.Artists who have released on this label include LTJ Bukem, Tayla, Furney, Redeyes, Q Project, Peshay, Big Bud, Nookie, Makoto, Intense, Artemis, New Balance, MC D.R.S., PFM,...

, Lovespirals could easily be found amongst their ranks in talent and sound.


By 2002, however, the band had eschewed Drum and Bass in favor of more Dream Pop focused territory - albeit with Jazz and World flavorings - for their first full-length CD, Windblown Kiss, released on Lum's long time label, Projekt. The album features two collaborations with former Projekt labelmate, Sean Bowley, of Eden, as well as sax contributions by Orenstein. Oddly enough, Windblown Kiss was linked to another burgeoning Gothic subgenre, "slow teary-eyed Gothic Jazz":
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.


After leaving Projekt to form their own label, Chillcuts, Lovespirals returned in 2005 with Free & Easy. This second album continued the band's exploration of Jazz, but in a much more Electronica-oriented style. As part of the album's promotion, Peace Love Productions held a remix contest for the album's first single, "Walk Away." An entry by Bitstream Dream - whom Bee has collaborated with on several songs - was one of Lovespirals' first tracks deemed podsafe
Podsafe
Podsafe is a term created in the podcasting community to refer to any work which, through its licensing, specifically allows the use of the work in podcasting, regardless of restrictions the same work might have in other realms...

. Podsafe Music Network
Podsafe Music Network
Podsafe Music Network, or PMN, is currently the primary archive of podsafe music on the internet. It was established by PodShow, a podcast production company founded by Adam Curry and Ron Bloom, in the summer of 2005...

 founder, Adam Curry
Adam Curry
Adam Clark Curry is a broadcasting and Internet personality well known for his stint from 1987 to 1994 as a video jockey on the music video channel MTV. In the mid-1990s, Curry was a World Wide Web entrepreneur and one of the first celebrities to personally create and administer a Web site...

, premiered "Walk Away (Bitstream Dream Remix)" on Daily Source Code
Daily Source Code
The Daily Source Code is a podcast by Adam Curry, often considered a pioneer of podcasting. Curry talks about his everyday life and events in the podcasting scene or the news in general, as well as playing music from the Podsafe Music Network and promotions for other podcasts...

 #261 http://mp3.dailysourcecode.podshow.com/DSC-261-2005-10-17.mp3 on October 17, 2005. This remix currently holds the #2 position on the Podsafe Music Network's Top Ten Most Played On Podcasts chart for the Downtempo genre. The #1 position is held by the second Free & Easy single, "Love Survives." Also in the Downtempo Top Ten is the 2004 Bitstream Dream song, "Phantasma," featuring Bee's vocals and lyrics.

In June 2005, Lovespirals began a band podcast entitled "Chillin' with Lovespirals." The show's theme music is the opening intro from title track, "Free & Easy." In addition to band news, the podcast discusses "recent trends in music and technology." Chillin' with Lovespirals became available on the iTunes store in July 2005. In 2006, the podcast was signed on with PodShow with the extended the show name "Chillin' with Lovespirals: Insights of an Indie Band."

Bee was signed to PodShow as a podcast producer in February 2006. Her first PodShow property was the weekly podsafe Chillout music podcast, The Chillcast with Anji Bee, which she originally launched in January 2006 on Ourmedia
Ourmedia
Ourmedia is a media archive, supported by the Internet Archive, which freely hosts any non-pornographic images, text, and video or audio clips, where this would not violate copyright laws. The website, which launched on March 21, 2005, was founded by Marc Canter and J.D. Lasica.The media archive,...

 as "The Chillcuts Chillcast" as a tie-in to the band's label. The show's theme song was created by Lovespirals. The Chillcast was added to the Adam Curry's PodShow lineup on Sirius Stars
SIRIUS Stars
SIRIUS XM Stars is the result of a merger between XM's Take Five and Sirius' Sirius Stars. It was once the flagship talk station on SIRIUS Satellite Radio, but now has shifted focus as a talk destination for women...

 in January 2007.

Lovespirals' 3rd album, Long Way From Home, released October 23, 2007, was a return to guitar and vocal based compositions, more in the dream pop style, with Americana
Americana (music)
Americana is an amalgam of roots musics formed by the confluence of the shared and varied traditions that make up the American musical ethos; specifically those sounds that are merged from folk, country, blues, rhythm and blues, rock and roll and other external influential styles...

 or alt. country influences. The CD was named after a lyric in the American Spiritual, "Motherless Child
Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child
"Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child" is a traditional Negro spiritual.The song dates back to the era of slavery in the United States when it was common practice to sell children of slaves away from their parents. An early performance of the song dates back to the 1870s by the Fisk Jubilee...

", which was the first single from Long Way From Home. Lovespirals' rendition of "Motherless Child" was first released on the Podsafe Music Network on June 1, 2007, and has been featured on podcasts including Daily Source Code, Accident Hash, Financial Aid Podcast http://cdn.libsyn.com/financialaidpodcast/20070622.mp3, PodShow Radio http://m.podshow.com/media/174/episodes/81799/podshowradio-81799-10-03-2007.mp3, and the Podsafe Music Countdown Top 10 http://media.libsyn.com/media/cdogg/PMC_20071007.mp3. "Motherless Child" currently holds the #3 spot on the Most Played on Podcasts chart for the Downtempo Genre on Music Alley (formerly known as the Podsafe Music Network), while the album's second single, "This Truth," currently ranks #7 on the same chart.

The two lead singles from Long Way From Home were also released as digital EPs, with Downtempo, House, and other Electronica genre remixes hearkening to the band's prior sound. The Motherless Child EP released September 16, 2007, contains remixes by Hungry Lucy
Hungry Lucy
Hungry Lucy is a darkwave, trip-hop duo with a female vocalist. Beginning in 1998, they have released four full-length CDs. On Alfa Matrix in Europe and on Hungry Media for the US...

, Karmacoda
Karmacoda
Karmacoda is a US trip hop, downtempo and electronica band based in San Francisco, CA. Karmacoda features lead vocalist Heather Pierce, vocalist/guitarist B., DJ/Turntablist Rafael Acevedo and bassist Eric Matsuno.-History:...

, MoShang
MoShang
MoShang is a downtempo Musician and Music Producer originally from South Africa. He is referred to as the Sound Jeweler and has been living in Taiwan since 2003.-Early Life and Musical Background :...

, Chris Caulder (of Beauty's Confusion), The Black Channel Citizen, and Lovespirals' own Ryan Lum. A year later, the band assembled a 10 song collection of remixes culled from their second Peace Love Production remix contest to create the This Truth EP. Artists include the contest winning producer, Pomatic, runner-up Kambronn, and Projekt Records labelmate, Soul Whirling Somewhere. All of these remixes, plus the still-unreleased Walk Away EP, are available on Mevio's Music Alley for free download and use by podcasters and Internet DJs.

In 2009, UK dance label, Loverush Digital, released another set of "This Truth" remixes, branded as Damien.S VS Lovespirals. This 7-song single includes remixes by Juno Sinclair and Craig Bailey, Avatar One, Thomas Oldani, and Adam Fielding
Adam Fielding
Adam Fielding is a UK based electronic music producer and composer.-History:Starting in 1995, Fielding began writing music using a combination of an Atari STe computer running Protracker software. Although this started out as more of a hobby to support his interest in games programming, his...

 - as well as 2 mixes by Damien.S. There is also a radio edit of the Damien.S remix. The single reached number #2 on the DMC World Wide Trance Charts, #4 on the DMC World Wide House Charts, #8 on the UK Music Week
UK Music Week
UK Music Week was a United Kingdom-wide music chart which compiled the 40 UK greatest artists of all time.Most commercial radio stations took part in the week-long event from April 24 to May 1, 2006, which consisted of special programming and one networked programme on the last day from 3pm-7pm...

 Club Charts and received very positive DJ reactions: Paul Wilkins (Hed Kandi
Hed Kandi
Hed Kandi is an UK-based record label and a music brand which was established in 1999 by Mark Doyle, specialising in funky, soulful house music. Hed Kandi's catalogue includes both artist albums and various genres of club compilations. As well as producing music albums and compilations, Hed Kandi...

) 8/10, Pedro Del Mar (Germany) 8/10, Paul Hughes (Energy FM
Energy FM
Energy FM is the brand name of several radio stations:* Energy FM * Energy FM * Energy FM * Energy FM * Energy FM * Energy FM * Energy FM * NRJ Russia, also known as Energy FM...

) 9/10, and Cliff Bush (Saint FM
Saint FM
Saint FM is a radio station serving the island of Saint Helena. The station's studios and administration offices are located at Association Hall, Main Street, Jamestown...

). The single was also supported by Housesession with Denny Dowd on Juice FM
Juice FM
107.6 Juice FM is a British Independent Local Radio, set up in 1998 in Liverpool after the closing of alternative music station 107.6 Crash FM and its subsequent purchase by Forever Broadcasting. It launched with a format broadly in keeping with that of Crash, but with a greater amount of...

.

Lovespirals 4th album, Future Past, was released officially on January 1, 2010 http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/future-past/id346986173, though the band offered the album in digipac CD format on their own webstore as early as November 16, 2009. The album's first single, "Shine," received the Reviewer’s Pick Award for Best Female Vocals and the Track of the Day Award for the Alternative Pop genre. Various songs from the album have received airplay from Groovera
Groovera
Groovera is an independent, multi-channel, commercial-free, and listener-supported Internet-only radio station dedicated to the loosely-typed genres of music "smooth electronica", "soft techno" and most commonly "chill-out music". Specifically, Groovera features mixes of downtempo, future lounge,...

, Soma FM, the Properly Chilled show on WXGR FM, and WSUM
WSUM
WSUM is a student radio station in Madison, Wisconsin, affiliated with the University of Wisconsin–Madison. The station schedule consists of a wide range of music and talk programming serving the campus and Madison community.-History:...

.

Lovespirals' music has been featured internationally on network television and cable shows and stations including The Oprah Winfrey Show
The Oprah Winfrey Show
The Oprah Winfrey Show is an American syndicated talk show hosted and produced by its namesake Oprah Winfrey. It ran nationally for 25 seasons beginning in 1986, before concluding in 2011. It is the highest-rated talk show in American television history....

, The Martha Stewart Show
Martha (TV series)
Martha, also known as The Martha Stewart Show, is an American, weekday one-hour talk show hosted by Martha Stewart. Previously airing in first-run syndication, the show began exclusively airing on cable network Hallmark Channel since September 13, 2010.-History:The program originally debuted on...

, E!'s Gastineau Girls, VH1
VH1
VH1 or Vh1 is an American cable television network based in New York City. Launched on January 1, 1985 in the old space of Turner Broadcasting's short-lived Cable Music Channel, the original purpose of the channel was to build on the success of MTV by playing music videos, but targeting a slightly...

, MTV
MTV
MTV, formerly an initialism of Music Television, is an American network based in New York City that launched on August 1, 1981. The original purpose of the channel was to play music videos guided by on-air hosts known as VJs....

, and Logo
Logo
A logo is a graphic mark or emblem commonly used by commercial enterprises, organizations and even individuals to aid and promote instant public recognition...

.

Discography

  • Ecstatic (2001 Mp3.com
    MP3.com
    MP3.com is a web site operated by CNET Networks providing information about digital music and artists, songs, services, community, and technologies. It is probably better known for its original incarnation, as a legal, free music-sharing service, popular with independent musicians for promoting...

    ) (2011 Chillcuts)
  • Windblown Kiss (2002 Projekt Records
    Projekt Records
    This is the article for the record label. You might be looking for Pro-jekt, ProjeKct, Project Pitchfork, or Projekt RevolutionProjekt is a Brooklyn, New York-based independent record label specializing in gothic rock, ambient, ethereal, darkwave, shoegaze, dream-pop, and dark cabaret created by...

    )
  • Free & Easy (2005 Chillcuts)
  • Long Way From Home (2007 Chillcuts/reapandsow)
  • Motherless Child EP (2007 Chillcuts/reapandsow)
  • This Truth EP (2008 Chillcuts)
  • Damien.S VS Lovespirals This Truth (2009 Loverush Digital)
  • Future Past (2010 Chillcuts)
  • Love EP (2010 Chillcuts)

Various Artist Compilations

  • Claire Voyant
    Claire Voyant
    Claire Voyant is a dream pop, darkwave, ethereal wave band from Sacramento, California. The trio were once part of a 5-piece band called Murmur, which split over creative differences...

     Time Again: A Collection of Remixes Accession Records (2000)
  • Chill Out Lounge Vol. 2 Water Music Records
    Water Music Records
    Water Music Records is an electronica record label based in Los Angeles, California. Launched in July, 2000, Water Music Records releases, markets and distributes albums in various sub-styles of electronica including Chill Out, Lounge and Down-Tempo music...

     (2001)
  • Chill Out in the City Water Music Records (2001)
  • Music Inspired by SWAT SWAT Productions(2001)
  • Excelsis 3: A Prelude Projekt Records (2001)
  • Claire Voyant
    Claire Voyant
    Claire Voyant is a dream pop, darkwave, ethereal wave band from Sacramento, California. The trio were once part of a 5-piece band called Murmur, which split over creative differences...

     Time Again: A Collection of Remixes Metropolis Records
    Metropolis Records
    Metropolis Records is a Philadelphia, Pennsylvania based record label, distributor, and mail-order store specializing in the post-industrial field such as electro-industrial, synthpop, futurepop, darkwave, and gothic musical genres....

     (2001)
  • Excelsis Box Set Projekt Records (2001)
  • Mondisk: A Celebration of 13 Years Monitor Records (2002)
  • Cool Terrasse CH Musiq (2002)
  • Blisscent 1 Blisscent Records (2002)
  • Projekt: Gothic Projekt Records (2002)
  • Projekt 2002.2 Projekt Records (2002)
  • The Arbitrary Width of Shadows Projekt Records (2002)
  • A Dark Noel: The Very Best of Excelsis Projekt Records/Hot Topic (2002)
  • Projekt 2002.3 Projekt Records (2002)
  • Dark Horizons - A Decade of Darkness Dark Horizons (2003)
  • Projekt 2003.1 Projekt Records (2003)
  • Precipice Vol. 2 Precipice Recordings (2004)
  • NPF Tribute Vol. 1: None Of Us Is Pink NPF (2005)
  • NPF Tribute Vol. 2: The Return of the Sons of Neptune NPF (2005)
  • Asian Variations: Various Artists Remixed by MoShang
    MoShang
    MoShang is a downtempo Musician and Music Producer originally from South Africa. He is referred to as the Sound Jeweler and has been living in Taiwan since 2003.-Early Life and Musical Background :...

    OnsePlate (2007)
  • Projekt200 Projekt (2007)
  • The Best of Sunday Sundown Intralog Sunday Media Network (2007)
  • The Chillcast With Anji Bee: 5 Years of Chillin Chillcuts (2011)

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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