5 years in the making, Lovespirals' 5th full-length outing, ‘Life Goes On,’ explores themes of love, loss, and the pains of the passage of time. Now 51, band founder, Ryan Lum reflects, “My gear was pretty primitive when I first started making music in 1990. After all these years, I wanted to see if I could create an album as sonically masterful as some of my favorite albums from back then, particularly those of the Cocteau Twins.”

Lum’s music has long been linked to the mysterious Scottish trio, particularly when his band was known as Love Spirals Downwards, before the turn of the millennium, when he bonded with vocalist/lyricist Anji Bee over the then-new British trip-hop and jungle scene, especially moodier artists like Massive Attack, Portishead, and LTJ Bukem’s Good Looking Records crew.

Though Lovespirals were born out of beat production and DJ culture, the duo’s love for the brooding guitar and string machine of The Cure or the hazy shoegazer meets Americana sound of Slowdive/Mojave 3 and Mazzy Star — and even classic rock acts of their youth like Fleetwood Mac and Pink Floyd — never waned, and Lum was still a guitarist at his core.