LD Beghtol, musician, artist and writer who contributed to The Magnetic Fields' '69 Love Songs' has died at 55, MXMWN reports. LD has participated in various other musical collaborations with Stephin Merritt over the years like The Three Terrors, and he made his own music, too, as part of Flare, and LD & the New Criticism. LD also wrote about music for Time Out, chickfactor, The Advocate, and The Village Voice, and he also made the book '69 Love Songs: A Field Guide'.

Last week the mighty chamber indie collective Magnetic Fields announced that their new album, ‘Quickies’, will consist of 28 songs; the longest of which clocks in at 2.35 and the shortest runs to just 17 seconds. It’s a new paradigm I’d love to see alternative music embrace again" - Mark, My Words argues in favor of short songs in rock.

"We take the ugliest parts of the world and make them beautiful" - the free-jazz/hip-hop band Irreversible Entanglements say about their new song 'Who Sent You'; Ash Koosha has released a cool new video for his meditative and intense track ‘Dive’, Perfume Genius is back with "music to both fight and make love to" with 'Describe'; R.A.P. Ferreira goes into trippy, jazzy territory in 'Leaving Hell'; Nordic dark folk band Wardruna combine modern and traditional on 'Gra'; Body Count go political again on 'Bum-Rush'; P.E. mix post-punk and electronica on 'Pink Shiver'; Welsh producer and vocalist Kelly Lee Owens samples the sounds of glacial ice melting on ‘Melt!’ to impressive effect; similarly, Field Works turns the echolocations of endangered bats into ambient on 'Ultrasonic'; singer/producer Velvet Negroni released a hard-hitting, psychedelic R&B song 'Bagette'; 'Crunch' is a noisy indie rock song by Jordana; It Only Ends Once is an interesting blend of screamo, black metal, and post-rock; Injury Reserve continue their avant-rap path with 'Hoodwinked'; Dirty Projectors described their new song 'Overlord' as "Joni Mitchell’s ‘Both Sides Now’ for an Amazon Prime world”; White Stones go in psychedelic prog-death metal direction on 'Drowned In Time'; XL Recordings co-founder Richard Russell released a Ghostface Killah collaboration '03:15AM/Caviar'; Elder present their concept album about the lifespan of a civilization with 'Embers'; Disclosure go to the dancefloor with 'Tondo'; 'Sandwiches' by Gordi is a usual-sounding song, but there's a special kind of wormth to it; Methyl Ethel go into sympho-indie territory with 'Majestic AF'; The Magnetic Fields don't need much explaining with a song titled 'The Day the Politicians Died'.