Love Spirals Downward
Ever
Projekt Records, Box 166155, Chicago IL 60616, question@projekt.com
Release Date: 1997
Sometimes a punk song is just a punk song. And sometimes it's a ska song, too.
Love Spirals Downwards' Ever is a lot like landscaping. You can ask many of the same questions of both: does it serve a purpose unto itself? Is it something to be examined directly, or does it necessarily reside only in our peripheral vision? It is an art, but is it an end?
Ever won't answer the questions, but it'll certainly get you thinking about them. Like good landscaping, the curves and colors of LSD's music transform the environment and add another dimension to the backdrop of existence. It pulls together disparate elements and integrates them, producing a continual flow from an otherwise chafing confrontation between the natural and the constructed.
The organic acoustic guitar of "Lieberflusse" streams into the gentle electronic ring of "Ananda." The mossy flutter and sway of opener "El Pedregal" interlinks with the synthetic pop and hum of "Madras." "Delta" takes that most brassy and earthy musical form, the blues, and adorns it with gold filigree; instead of going down bourbon-hot, the song glides like fresh lemonade on a warm, breezy river evening.
The instrumentation loops and shifts ceaselessly, washing elements from Spanish guitar to bells in the key of Casio into an inseparable, watery tide. It is a perfect accompaniment to the vocals, which are of the Cocteau Twins variety: inconsequentially enigmatic. The notes are more important than the words -- she could be singing about fried shoelaces in terrycloth sauce and you'd never know the difference.
Wistful rather than sad, a groundswell rather than a thunderstorm, LSD's music is more likely to spur you to introspection rather than outward connection. Integrative rather than provocative, Ever is an emotional vortex. Instead of screaming, "Look at me!" Love Spirals Downwards whispers, "Look at yourself."
Note: Ever was originally released last year, but was not widely available due to distribution problems. It was re-released last month as part of a new distribution deal.
-- Lindy Powell
powell@outersound.com
