Introducing Waiting for Frank Ocean in Cairo

Take off your headphones, put down your hauntings, & come inside out of the heat. We’ve been waiting for so long.

Topaz WintersFebruary 6, 2022Frank Ocean, Hazem Fahmy, Hanif Abdurraqib, Shayla Lawson, Sara Elkamel

Introducing Elegy

Welcome to elegy: the last dropped petal—the mirror in mourning—the light still on for what once was beautiful.

Music, AnnouncementsTopaz WintersAugust 6, 2021

From the Editor: The Synaesthesia Issue

I am slow to reach for music these days, maybe because music doesn’t feel out of reach anymore.

From the Editor, Announcements, MusicTopaz WintersJuly 28, 2021

The Synaesthesia Letters (A Selection)

When a poem reaches its most potent limits, I consider it reaching into the state of song.

"When we open ourselves to fully experiencing music, the border between sound and body dissolves." (An Interview With Janelle Cordero)

The human face and figure are inescapable transits of power, and seeing certain poses transforming the page grounds me in myself like nothing else.

Art, Music, InterviewsKate WilsonJuly 22, 2021Janelle Cordero, Norah Jones, Ray LaMontagne, Joni Mitchell, Ray Charles

IX: Synaesthesia | Silver-Tipped Swallow: "Come as You Are"

With my suitcases packed & the sky creased to its perfect middle, I’m the most beautiful I’ve ever been without having already left.

"It's the unison where the magic happens." (Darnell "DeeSoul" Carson on Synaesthesia)

When I listen to music, it moves through me because it has to. The soundwaves hit my ears, and my body decides where it needs to go next.

IX: Synaesthesia | Uncomposed: "Daughter, Peach"

I could be sharp-tongued, curious, fucked-up—what had never felt available to me. For the first time, French was no longer borrowed, but mine.

Personal Essay, Music, ColumnsPaola BennetJune 29, 2021uncomposed

Songs for the Synaesthesia Issue (A Selection)

A selection of songs that have marked this era of fluid warmth, the soundtrack to which we’ve been dreaming a bright new thing into breath.

"The essential mystery of things is sometimes best articulated by their own organic resonances." (Ryan Griffith on Synaesthesia)

The artist’s dictum “trust your materials” only started to make sense in collage, with strange fabrics and colors and patterns coalescing in startling meaning.