R.I.P. Richard Swift, producer, solo artist, and member of The Shins and The Arcs

Richard Swift, a singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist who released music as a solo artist along with his work as a member of indie-rock powerhouses The Shins, The Black Keys, and The Arcs, has died. Swift was suffering from an undisclosed “life-threatening condition,” and had been in the hospital since last month. The news was officially announced on a post on his Facebook page which read, “And all the angels sing ‘Que Sera Sera.’” He was 41.

Swift spent his youth moving around the country with his family, living everywhere from northern Minnesota to southern Utah; in his early 20s, he moved to Southern California, where he recorded and released two self-produced albums, Walking Without Effort and The Novelist, and briefly played keyboards in alt-rock band Starflyer 59. He then signed to indie label Secretly Canadian, who re-released his first two albums as The Richard Swift Collection,Vol. 1 in 2005. Following the release of his 2007 solo album Dressed Up For the Letdown, Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy asked him to open for them on their Sky Blue Sky tour, beginning Swift’s transition to more collaborative and production work.