Conceived as an amorous response to the digital age, on The Sport of Love seasoned collaborators Asma Maroof, Patrick Belaga and Tapiwa Svosve unpick the yearning heart and flickering frailty of modern romance, where hot bodies surge to chafe or flash at the binary.
The trio are part of the revolving collective Moved by the Motion which variously includes the artist and filmmaker Wu Tsang, the dancers and performance artists Tosh Basco and Josh Johnson and the poet and essayist Fred Moten. The Sport of Love is their steamiest outpouring and follows hot on the heels of their soundtrack work for Virgil Abloh at Louis Vuitton and Bafic whose documentary short Sub Eleven Seconds lyrically portrayed the Olympic quest of the sprinter Sha’Carri Richardson.
Here on The Sport of Love the pensive airs, radiating whorls and tangled flowerings of Svosve and Belaga on saxophone and flute, cello and piano are spritzed by the deejay and producer Maroof into sparkling fantasies, from the intoxicating first blush of ‘G Major Kinda Love’ to the extended centrepiece ‘The Stranger’ which features Ayha Simone on harp and Mathieu Edward on percussion. In the process The Sport of Love squares the circle between the chiaroscuro work of Arve Henriksen, the fourth world splashes of Jon Hassell and the minor grooves and glissando blues of the jazz greats Alice Coltrane and Dorothy Ashby.
