Various artists
All These Things I Thought I Knew: A Compilation Tribute to the Late LD Beghtol
MOTHER WEST
Of all the varied various-artist tribute albums dedicated to those we’ve lost, I can’t more highly recommend this swooning musical dedication to songwriter, vocalist, art director, writer, and sort-of one-time Magnetic Fields member LD Beghtol, an artist celebrated on cassette earlier this month for Record Store Day, and now in digital release. Though best known as one of Stephin Merritt’s chorus of solo vocalists and instrumentalists on the epically erudite 69 Love Songs, Bechtol was the dearly dour, lyrically acerbic, baroque doom-pop centerpiece of bands he led such as Moth Wranglers, Flare, and the less gloomy but still serious and sarcastic LD & the New Criticism before he passed away in 2020.
As Bechtol’s ensembles were pretty much collectives of close friends, cool collaborators, and clever familiars looking for an excuse to jam, this tribute to LD is something of a family affair, a glorified Irish wake where those who love the deceased hang out, play, laugh, and cry in dedication to the dead. The best-known member of the mourning troupe, of course, is the ever-mournful Merritt, whose rendition of Flare’s aptly titled “Celebrate the Misery” now becomes a painstakingly slow, room-ambient Christmas hymn complete with sleigh bells and Merritt’s signature monotone bass at work. Sweet-and-sour songwriter Kendall Jane Meade wrote the melodically melancholic but merry “Who Decides?” in tribute to her Le Grand Magistery labelmate, while the rest of Bechtol’s Moth Wranglers’ wrigglingly reappropriate “Ukulele Built for Two” in dedication to their fallen comrade’s small stringed instrument skills (LD additionally played tenor guitar, Stylophone, and baritone uke, among other oddball percussion bits).
And Bechtol’s former producer Charles Newman (along with Jon DeRosa) and singer Julia Kent tackle their old friend’s tart “If/Then” and “Ephemera,” respectively, as if sharing an old joke among pals. I might not recognize every artist here, and do know that some of these songs were inspired by Bechtol’s brilliance rather than stem from his pen, but by the time I finished All These Things, I wanted to hang out with this crew, too.
