Windblown Kiss

Lovespirals

Product Details

• Audio CD (June 18, 2002)
• Original Release Date: 2002
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Projekt Records
• ASIN: B00006879B
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #253,421 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Phil Anderson, KAOS 2000, June 2002
Tasteful, seductive, and intriguingly mesmerizing, Lovespirals offers up a most eclectic smattering of jazzy musical beauty. Nice, nice, nice!

Product Description
Windblown Kiss is the first full-length album by Lovespirals, the beautiful, and beautifully surprising collaboration of RYAN LUM (the driving force behind legendary Love Spirals Downwards ) and new collaborative singer/songwriter Anji Bee.

Reknown multi-instrumentalist Lum once again creates musical landscapes of breathtaking beauty - and with vocal styles ranging from ethereal to earthy, sweet to sensual, Bee shows off her remarkable vocal range, and allows the full force of her voice to soar into the sublime.

Drawing inspiration from Flamenco, Bebop, soul, folk and the stacks of early vinyl they each grew up loving, Lovespirals has created a timeless world of romance and intrigue. Leaving behind the conventional restraints of dance-floor tracks, this latest endeavor is at once a dreamscape of nostalgia, and a kiss blown to the future.

Using half a dozen different guitars, and featuring the extraordinary talents of Doron Orenstein (of Frescoe ) on saxophones, and Sean Bowley (of Eden) on acoustic guitar and vocals, Windblown Kiss is a celebration of creative anachronism: the past and the future negotiate a gorgeous balance.

See all Editorial Reviews

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars beautiful treatise on romantic expression, July 27, 2002

By A Customer

The first word that comes to mind on hearing Lovespirals' Windblown Kiss is sultry. Singer Anji Bee has a seductive coo in her full-bodied voice that immediately catches the ear and stirs the blood; instrumentalist Ryan Lum knows exactly how to frame it with lush guitars, tasteful keyboards and rhythms that draw from jazz and bossa nova as much as rock and pop. An outgrowth of the Gothic dreampop band Love Spirals Downwards, Lovespirals cast aside much of the previous incarnation's psychedelic gloom while retaining its romantic angst. The airy arrangements and acoustic guitars put a new spin on the kind of emotional claustrophobia at which LSD was so adept. "And it's oh so long to wait/I lack the patience/Give me strength" Bee sighs in "Oh So Long" as she waits to be reunited with her lover; "Swollen Sea" and "I Can't See You" also look for beauty in the pain of lost love. But Bee and Lum don't forget joy: "Our Nights," "He Calls Me" (which adds an overt spiritual dimension to the proceedings) and the title tune celebrate love instead of dreading it. Interestingly, Lum and Bee invite guitarist/songwriter Sean Bowley from Eden to contribute vocals and lyrics to two cuts; the results are strong Gothic folk/pop songs, but they don't fit with the rest of the record. Still, those songs don't detract from an otherwise consistently beautiful treatise on romantic expression.

Michael

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Lovespirals need a new audience, October 7, 2002

By A Customer

"Windblown Kiss" is obviously misunderstood by many Projekt Records fans. Clearly, this album was not recorded with them in mind. None -- or at least, few -- of the typical ethereal music cliches are present in the songwriting of this new Lovespirals release. While there is certainly an ethereal mood to many of the songs, there is never an abundance of quote-unquote ethereal style going on. Lovespirals compose songs, not ambient passages, with clearly defined verses, choruses, bridges, solos -- the whole nine yards. Not content to stick to simple mood pieces, they offer fine musicianship and variety in the sound and song structures of this unconventional offering. There's no easy pigeonhole for Lovespirals' music to fit into, least of all darkwave, gothic, ambient, or ethereal. Jazz is really not an apt description either, as jazz is merely one element of their songwriting. Folk is certainly also present, rock, even a bit of world music. This album doesn't cater to any one class of music genres, which makes it very refreshing to some folks, and fairly difficult for others. The fact that it doesn't live up to someone's idea of what a Projekt record -- or a Love Spirals Downwards record -- should sound like does not make it a "bad" record. This record needs to be discovered by a much broader range of music listeners to be truly appreciated for what it is; an extraordinarly brave new blend of musical genres, taking the most profound and beautiful essense of each, and wedding them in blissful harmony.

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Sultry and Sweet, September 13, 2002

By	John May "Amadio" (Everett, WA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Let me start off by saying that Lovespiralsdownward has been one of my favorite bands for over 10 years. Suzanne Perry's delay laden, processed vocals were wonderful. Now with that said, Windblown Kiss is not a Lovespiralsdownward album. IT'S BETTER!
What we lost with the departure Suzanne Perry, we gained in the sweet voiced Anji Bee, who really shows off her talent with some sultry Jazz vocals. As for Ryan Lum, he's still creating great music. Windblown Kiss is more eclectic than some of his recent work, and reminds me more of his first album Idylls. The tracks I like most on Windblown Kiss are "I can't see you", and the America cover "You Girl". I can't really compare Lovespirals to another artist, but I will tell you that after listening to this album I had a strong craving to listen to artist like Peggy Lee, Nina Simone, Chris Isaak, Leonard Cohen, Cocteau Twins, and Tricky.