I’m not familiar with Japanese saxophonist Akira Sakata’s work but considering the other two collaborators here—Jim O’Rourke and impossible-to-crack-pseudonym-wearing Yoshimi (Boredoms/OOIOO)—I was expecting something completely off the wall. But Hagyou is a delicate affair; even when Sakata veers off into more aggressive or atonal territory his colleagues ground him with piano, drifting electronics, and drawn-out, wordless vocals.

If the Boredoms are about fusing different voices into one single wave of sound, Yoshimi’s vocal contributions on “A Vessel on a Foggy Night” are the flip side to this concept, substituting the Boredoms’ rhythmic density for sustained drones and meditative lyrical passages. Sakata’s sax is central, and Yoshimi does her best to blend in with it. Sakata and Yoshimi then trade off careful deviations from a basic sustained drone that gives the track its drifting, nocturnal mood. Other tracks on Hagyou tend to get carried away on rootless solos, but here these two voices, while lyrical, never really go off on their own. Sakata’s soulful, expressive playing (even when he embraces atonality, he’s miles away from the dissonance of Braxton or Brötzmann) continually fades into the background to make way for Yoshimi’s wounded animal cries or O’Rourke’s low, murky electronics.

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