Derek Bailey Sabu Toyozumi: Breath Awareness

English guitarist Derek Bailey was a regular visitor to Japan, where he was particularly appreciated. Audiences were such that after his first tour in 1978, he reportedly brought home the money to buy a car. As a consequence, he encountered many of the major figures on the country's free improvisation scene, as releases such as Duo & Trio Improvisation (Kitty, 1978) and Aida's Call (STAR, 1979) confirm. However, he doesn't appear on disc with drummer Sabu Toyozumi until Live In Okayama 1987 (Improvised Company, 1988), recorded two weeks after the date captured on Breath Awareness.

This archive recording surfaces as part of the ongoing profitable (not in terms of money obviously) relationship between the Lithuanian NoBusiness imprint and the Japanese Chap Chap label, which has resulted in a wealth of previously unheard music finally getting a hearing. The series includes other releases featuring both men, Bailey in duet with saxophonist Mototeru Takagi, and the drummer paired with Wadada Leo Smith, Peter Brötzmann and Mats Gustafsson among others.

In some ways the absence of a prior hook-up with the guitarist is a surprise as Toyozumi is one of the most travelled of Japanese musicians (even briefly joining Chicago's AACM in 1971) and offers visitors a sometimes steady pulse informed by his experiences in North America and Europe. Not that such a mode of expression necessarily sets him up to meet Bailey whose idiosyncratic approach tends to avoid a beat in any shape or form. But that does not get in the way of an intriguing and responsive set, comprising two lengthy and one shorter duo, and a 13-minute piece for unaccompanied guitar.

Toyozumi essentially uses his kit to deploy a constantly changing array of rhythmic fragments and cells, which vary from rapid-fire explosions to cymbal spume, which nonetheless builds up momentum and tension, while Bailey issues a stream of scrabbling dry flinty picks, abrasive scuffs and chiming plink- plonk notes. Although the interaction is largely oblique, empathy manifests through dynamics, as when the Englishman's quiet scrubbing causes Toyozumi to gradually come down from a high-energy interlude to a more conversational volume at the close of "My Jimny."

Indeed, this is one of those improv albums best valued for some delicious juxtapositions, like the scoured guitar set against a throbbing slow groove partway through the concluding "Fukuoka IMAI-House," or the cagey exchanges of the brief "Relux Or Not Talking" which ends with a sustained feedback howl accompanied by the sound of drumsticks thrown onto the floor. Bailey's solo cut "Diaphragm" is more spacious and reflective, bucolic verging on melodic at times, and makes a welcome variation of pace.

But it is the chance to hear the guitarist in the company of an unfamiliar partner that recommends this set.