All tracks written, mixed and produced by Dawuna

All Tracks Mastered by Amir Shoat 
*Track 9 by Engine-Earz

The Ape Prince

Smiling In Slow Motion

Asma Maroof, Patrick Belaga, Tapiwa Svosve - The Sport of Love 
Label: PAN
Cat.No.: PAN 134
Release Date: 26 May 2023
Purchase: pan.lnk.to/TheSportofLove

In the late 18th century, reason and rational thought was idealized and viewed as the most progressive way to comprehend a rapidly industrializing society. The snap reaction was Romanticism, an artistic movement that prioritized emotion, imagination and intuition - things that can't be quantified but have sustained culture for millennia. Now in a digitally accelerated age where our lives are not only measured but distributed in binary, a similarly hot-blooded creative response is long overdue. On The Sport of Love, seasoned collaborators Asma Maroof, Patrick Belaga and Tapiwa Svosve consider the language, competition and contradiction of modern romance: its yearning, incomprehensible vastness and the inevitable darkness and fleeting fragility. For the trio, love is the emotion that propels all of us whether we acknowledge it or not, and its expression can be realized in many forms.

“I know my musical collaborators on an arguably more intimate level than many of the friendships that are exclusively born of word-based language,” says Belaga. The cellist and composer has been developing a relationship with Los Angeles-based DJ-producer Maroof (also known as Asmara) and Svosve, a Swiss saxophonist and electro-acoustic musician, for many years; the three are all part of Moved by the Motion, a "roving band" that also includes artist and filmmaker Wu Tsang, performer and dancer Tosh Basco and dancer Josh Johnson. As a three-piece ensemble, their interaction is fluid and physical, and with Svosve and Belaga on sax, flute, piano and cello, Maroof sculpts the sounds into textured, effervescent fantasies. “A lot of the songs were improvised and then I made sense of the madness," she explains.

The music emerged like smoke from the embers of soundtrack work they collaborated on in 2021. After finishing scores for Virgil Abloh's Louis Vuitton A/W 2021 collection film, Peculiar Contrast, Perfect Light and Bafic’s documentary short Sub Eleven Seconds, the trio were left with unanswered questions and excess energy. They considered the idea of creating an imaginary score to a romantic movie, using love to dictate its movement and narrative. So opening track 'G Major Kind of Love' is the intoxicating first blush, characterized by a drowned sax solo that sounds like a siren call from beneath the ocean. 'Delicate Distance Between Boulders' is quivering and hesitant, using gentle piano motifs against reverberating flute sounds and subtle, goosebump inducing electronic treatments.

Everything comes into sharp focus on the album's lengthy central piece 'The Stranger', that brings in additional instrumentation from harpist Ayha Simone and percussionist Mathieu Edward. The three friends saw this particular composition as a journey within itself, charting the anxiety, harmony and uncertainty of love. Shifting from gooey freeform jazz into gurgling noise and bleak ambient drone, it connects the dots between Dorothy Ashby, Arve Henriksen, Jon Hassell and Hildur Guðnadóttir while voyaging into parts unknown. It's a finale of sorts that wrestles with the complexity of the album's themes, returning to earlier refrains and prolonging their tension.

Fittingly, the record is tied together by artwork from the trio's friend Tosh Basco, and several tracks have already been used by Wu Tsang in a piece for SFMoMa. The Sport of Love is powered by physical connection in a digital world, and breathes a mysterious allure that's never been more urgent.

The Sport of Love 

Asma Maroof, Patrick Belaga, Tapiwa Svosve - G Major Kinda Love (PAN 134)

'Staying here'

1st single from forthcoming album 'Great Doubt' out on Escho Jan 26, 2024

Listen here: 
https://astridsonne.lnk.to/here

Preorder vinyl: 
https://www.escho.net/shop/esc192-astrid-sonne-great-doubt-preorder
https://astridsonne.bandcamp.com/album/great-doubt

Staying here

great area - follow your nature

Lift You

Lift You (feat. Sophia Al-Maria)

Requisit - Also With Each Other

Emo Regulation

Spirals On My Tongue

vånda - evighet

Watch the full story here :  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvjsmfZLfRw&t=259s
Read the full story here: https://buymeacoffee.com/shantibay/arnav-journey

The path led him into a dense forest, filled with birdsong and the fragrance of aromatic herbs. As he walked, he marveled at how the world around him seemed to change, as if the forest itself had awakened to witness his journey. But soon, Arnav came upon an impassable obstacle.

Before him flowed a mighty, swirling river, its waters swift and deep. And right in the middle of the stream stood a colossal banyan tree, its enormous roots plunging deep into the water, its branches reaching the heavens. Its roots and crown were so vast that they completely blocked the path forward.

Confused, Arnav sat by the riverbank and sighed heavily. “Has my journey ended so soon? Must I turn back already?”

His thoughts were interrupted by a soft, gentle voice from beneath the tree’s shadow:

“Young traveler, why have you lowered your gaze and stopped?”

The boy looked up, astonished. Before him stood an unusual figure, glowing with a soft light. It was Ganesha — the elephant-headed god of wisdom, patron of beginnings, and remover of obstacles. In one hand, he held a small axe; in the other, a dish of sweets — a symbol of the sweet wisdom he bestows upon humanity.

Arnav bowed reverently and whispered:

“O wise Ganesha, I cannot go any further. The river is too swift, the tree too vast. My path is blocked.”

Ganesha smiled and sat beside the boy on the riverbank, gazing gently at the river and the tree.

“Listen to me carefully, Arnav,” he said softly. “You see an obstacle before you only because your gaze is fixed on the barrier, not on the possibilities. Look again — not with your eyes, but with your heart. What do you see now?”

Arnav closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and tried to sense the world differently. He smelled the forest, heard the soft whisper of the branches, felt the moisture of the river… And then, like a bolt of lightning, a thought flashed in his mind:

“I see a bridge, Ganesha — though it is not before me. It exists in my mind, in my heart.”


Ganesha — “The Wisdom to See the Path”

Soundscapes for the Emotional-Type Listener

November, 1st in Detroit

Label based in Berlin, est. 2008. http://www.p-a-n.org

Asma Maroof, Patrick Belaga, Tapiwa Svosve - G Major Kinda Love (PAN 134)

PAN

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