Throughout their eight-year career as Love Spirals Downwards, Ryan Lum and Suzanne Perry explored everything from folk to ambient to drum & bass, but it was their debut album that propelled them to the forefront of the ethereal scene. Now remastered by Lum himself and reissued with bonus tracks, Idylls in many ways epitomizes dark ethereal, with plenty of hypnotic guitar strums run through endless layers of effects pedals to cushion Perry's lilting sopranos. Compared to the duo's later material - not to mention Lum's current work in Lovespirals - it's also a lot more gothic than you might expect. While Idylls is a far cry from the sort of music Lum is making these days, he's done a fantastic job remastering the album for this edition, and it sounds wonderful. Love Spirals Downwards always had a warmer, less remote vibe than many of their contemporaries, and that shows up particularly on "Scatter January." The faint scratch of fingers moving over the fretboard during chord changes giving things a sense of immediacy that reaches through the layers of reverb; this music is dreamy, but it's by no means sleepy. Perry's voice on "Forgo" hides a knife edge beneath its softness, for example, and "Stir About the Stars" calls to mind fellow '90s Projekt act Lycia with its funereal drumbeats and brooding bass guitar. More indicative of Lum and Perry's eventual career path are "Ladonna Dissima," with its Latin vocal harmonies and drifting guitar fuzz, and the wonderfully evocative "And the Wood Comes into Leaf," all foggy and bittersweet, muffled naturalistic impressions, and delicate finger-picking. "Love's Labour's Lost" highlights the sheer prettiness of Perry's voice, which also softens the darker keyboard-driven motif of "Dead Language." While Idylls is a far cry from the sort of music Lum is making these days, he's done a fantastic job remastering the album for this edition, and it sounds wonderful. Love Spirals Downwards always had a warmer, less remote vibe than many of their contemporaries, and that shows up particularly on "Scatter January." The faint scratch of fingers moving over the fretboard during chord changes giving things a sense of immediacy that reaches through the layers of reverb; this music is dreamy, but it's by no means sleepy. Finishing up the CD are three bonus tracks. "Mediterranea" is a rarity originally appearing on Projekt's From Across This Grey Land, No. 3 compilation, a languid, melancholy medieval-tinged piece for guitar and voice. A live version of "Scatter January" adds a brooding mood that highlights the band's more overt gothic influences, and an alternate mix of "Love's Labour's Lost" from the Heavenly Voices, Pt. 1 compilation strips down the effects to emphasize the honeyed layers of vocal harmony. Well worth the long wait, this is a near-perfect reissue and should be required listening for ethereal fans.

Even if the rest of the album was substandard, Ardor would still be a near masterpiece thanks only to the presence of "Write in Water." Often copied but never quite surpassed, the song's languid guitar strums, celestial effects washes, and gorgeously bittersweet vocals epitomize the very best of the '90s ethereal scene. There's plenty more to Love Spirals Downwards' second album than "Write in Water" though. Less overtly gothic than their debut, Ardor sees the group exploring a little of everything, from shimmering pop to sleepy ambient, all within the context of Ryan Lum's languorous instrumentation and Suzanne Perry's lilting soprano. "Will You Fade" begins the album with blissful, hypnotic strums, then "Sidhe," written by Projekt label owner and Black Tape for a Blue Girl founder Sam Rosenthal, answers the first song's question by fading into bleary guitar drones. While "Avincenna" and "I Could Find It Only by Chance" are more than melancholy enough for goth fans, Lum and Perry are less dark than wistful. "Subsequently" is delicacy embodied, gossamer vocals and elegantly finger-picked chords adrift in clouds of sustain, and "Kykeon" approaches the sublime in its restrained pace, the silences between the chords as potent as the tones themselves. A second vocalist, Jennifer Wilde (now of Liquid State), appears on two tracks: the lovely "Depression Glass" and the sleepy ambient composition "Sunset Bell," offering a different vocal timbre, but no shortage of haunting beauty. "Tear Love from My Mind" finishes the album with dreamlike washes of guitar and subtle vocal harmonies; especially clear on this remastered edition, the song's production is exquisite, a foreshadowing of the recording techniques Lum would later explore with Lovespirals. This reissue also features several bonus tracks; besides the instrumental mix of "I Could Find It" and an extra delicate live recording of "Write in Water," longtime fans will be thrilled to hear "Oisin and Niam." Written during the Ardor sessions but never actually included on the album, it's a slightly lighter-feeling piece, thanks to an almost upbeat rhythm beneath the layers of drifting guitar. Delirious and beautiful, but never cloying or twee, Ardor is perhaps Love Spirals Downwards' magnum opus. Ethereal fans are lucky to have it available again.