Hex, Richard Swift, LP

Vinyl LP pressing. This simple, rather bubbly lyric seems to be the antithesis of a record unequivocally steeped in a milieu of devastating loss, grief, crippling depression, anxiety and alcoholism. But after probably-too-many late night deep dives into Richard Swift's posthumous masterpiece, The Hex, these are the very words that carousel round and round your skull. The lyric comes tucked at the tail end of the ironically jaunty and buoyant "Dirty Jim," a song about substance abuse; the lies you tell yourself in it's grip; and the loved ones you hurt along the way. The line is a flash of hope and beauty and levity. Swift believed in and sought real beauty. And so, even at it's most caustic and sardonic, The Hex is beautiful. Swift's palette in life and art was almost always greyscale. But here we are, with this masterpiece swan song with which to remember him. And every color now is shining through.