Richard Swift
Sure, it's been a while since Richard Swift was seemingly everywhere at once down in OC, but the combination of his move to Oregon to carry out studio work there and his current touring job with the Shins means he's been keeping busy despite the wrist injury that almost sidelined him a couple of years back–as well as continuing on with his own efforts, with the seven-song Walt Wolfman being the first release under his own name for a little while. And it has to be said that for the name alone he would get credit, so he should write a novel while he's at it and clean up on the Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter tip.
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Swift's love for the kind of smoky-atmosphered lounge-frug exercises that many remember from his stints at La Cave and elsewhere remains strong, as songs like “MG 333,” his overdubbed and overlapping vocals in good call-and-response mode, not to mention swathes of echo, over a quick-paced hipshaking arrangement, show. His drumming there and throughout is top notch, bold and aimed at the groove rather than at showboating, backing up everything from the delicious garage-rock whine of “Out & About” to the more stately opener “Whitman.”
