"I’ve made so many mistakes in my life—especially in processing familial grief." (Matt Mitchell on Sforzando)

My grandmother introduced the piano to me through AM radio. She didn’t know piano, but she knew piano.

Music, Personal EssayGuestJune 27, 2020The Beatles, Matt Mitchell, Carly Simon, Taylor Swift

VIII: Sforzando | Silver-Tipped Swallow: "Clean Break"

How many times can you choose the thing that hurts before you can’t call it an accident anymore.

Columns, Music, Personal EssayTopaz WintersJune 23, 2020silver-tipped swallow

Announcing the Submission Deadline for Issue VIII: Sforzando

Thank you for teaching us the grace of sandpaper, the razor-kiss of wreckage, staccato-sharp skeleton strung up to a 4/4 time signature.

Songs for the Sforzando Issue (a selection)

The songs our team has been spinning as we work to curate your—& our own—burning & cracking & aching into something beautiful for you.

"If I had a theory of noise it would contemplate substrates akin to the murmuring whale, and those substrates only." (Peter Milne Greiner on Sforzando)

Is the sforzando the registration or the dread?

Music, Personal Essay, Film, LiteratureGuestMay 30, 2020Loren Grush, Carl Sagan, Saul Peters, James Merrill, James Wa, Margaret Atwood, Andrew Joron, M. Night Shyamalan

"Nobody ever sees it coming, except for when they do." (Jessie Lynn McMains on Sforzando)

We said to the universe: Please drive faster. Said: Wait up, disaster! Maybe we have an inkling of what we’re summoning even as draw the circle on the floor.

Personal Essay, MusicGuestMay 26, 2020The World/Inferno Friendship Society, David Whyte, Leonard Cohen, Adam Fell, Ander Monson

Preorders are Open for Issue VIII: Sforzando

This issue is not a crescendo but a car crash, perfect as death, sudden as becoming. It eats its ghosts alive, mouth raw & open. It refuses to blink.

Announcements, MusicTopaz WintersMay 18, 2020Jessie Lynn McMains, Elizabeth Ruth Deyro, Peter Milne Greiner, Gale Acuff, Elijah Mann, C.A Scheherazade, Cindy Xin, Rodney Wilder, Matt Mitchell, Leela Chantrelle, Jonah Howell, Jam Pascual, Hana Widerman, Love In the Ruins, Joan Pope

Harmonium Dreaming

It’s a strange thing, to have a relationship with an instrument as complex and fraught as mine is with the harmonium.

Music, History, Personal EssayAmrita ChakrabortyMay 4, 2020Christian Gottlieb Kratzenstein, Alexandre Debain, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan

"If the body remembers everything, she happened." From the Editor, Giveaway, & the Launch of Marie Conlan's Say Mother Say Hand

What a space we made for ourselves last night—& when I say space I hope you hear salvation. You’re the best love we know, dear songbirds.

From the Editor, Announcements, Gatherings, Literature, MusicTopaz WintersApril 19, 2020Marie Conlan, Shawnie Hamer, Topaz Winters, Sammie Downing, Gabrielle Joy Lessans

"The book stretches into the realms of dream & surreality, hinging on histories I don’t have full access to." (An Interview With Marie Conlan)

I think we as humans experience a collective aching to know ourselves, and psychics & therapists each illuminate different access points.

Music, Literature, InterviewsKate WilsonApril 13, 2020Akilah Oliver, Marie Conlan, Ocean Voung, Danielle Vogel, The Library Tapes, Chelsea Wolfe, Colleen, Atmosphere, Jay-Z, Common