"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

Launch of Marie Conlan's Say Mother Say Hand on IG Live: See You There?

Please join us at Half Mystic’s latest gathering this coming Saturday, April 18, 2020, at 9 P.M. EST.

Gatherings, Literature, Music, AnnouncementsTopaz WintersApril 11, 2020Marie Conlan, Sammie Downing, Gabrielle Joy Lessans, Shawnie Hamer

Dear Renata (Marie Conlan on Say Mother Say Hand)

& now, spinning in the center of pandemic, what is celebration in an era of loss? Of isolation? She said resilience. I heard re-silence.

Personal Essay, Music, LiteratureGuestApril 8, 2020Marie Conlan

How to Survive Social Distancing (A Selection)

Now, I don’t know how to write about the spring without writing about the sickness. It’s a tricky and selfish thing.

Wuthering Heights in Words and Song: Female Hysteria, Melodrama, and Racial Complexity

The women of Wuthering Heights take up substantial space in their caustic, expansive splendor.

Literature, Music, Personal EssayAmrita ChakrabortyMarch 24, 2020Kate Bush, Hayley Westenra, Emily Brontë, Constantin Héger