An in-demand producer and sideman as well as an idiosyncratic singer/songwriter, Richard Swift became an increasingly influential member of the indie music community throughout the 2000s and 2010s. He experimented with stylized production involving heavy reverb and psychedelic effects beginning with his first two solo releases, 2001's Walking Without Effort (released in 2005) and 2003's The Novelist. As a producer, he recorded albums with artists spanning Sylvie Lewis, Damien Jurado, Guster, and Nathaniel Rateliff & the Night Sweats, and as an instrumentalist, he played with bands including the Shins, the Black Keys, and the Arcs. Following a brief illness, Swift died in mid-2019 at the age of 41. Typically eclectic and haunting, his final solo album, The Hex, was released posthumously the same year. ~ Marcy Donelson