How to grieve Sophie

On February 1st, 2021, we learned that the musician Sophie had died the night before, a simple slip and fall. The news hit everyone I know like a shockwave. In part this is because Sophie was a trailblazing trans musician. Her sound is harsh, synthetic, and bright; with the exception of the human voice, every sound is constructed from thin air, yet reminiscent of some industrial bubbling or banging noise. Seeing how much influence she had on her successors, it's hard not to feel that she should have been part of the future she set in motion. Or perhaps we didn't know how to hear that a trans celebrity had died so suddenly, so sensationally, and of natural causes rather than a hate crime. But I think the cornerstone of it all was the uncanny, yet moving way Sophie's label describes the death: True to her spirituality she had climbed up to watch the full moon and accidentally slipped and fell. She will always be here with us. I don't know if this language is bad, per se, but it's deeply…