Sagaing performs Yamauchi’s original compositions, creating sounds both old and new, moving back and forth in the pulse of time and space. The groups aims to develop the internal structure of their sound, using their basic formation as a saxophone and guitar duo, with occasional addition of bass. After Yamasaki joined the group in 2018, Sagaing has frequently toured, including two tours of Taiwan and most of Japan.

Creator of "Salmo Sax”, a fresh and sparkling music built by sound itself and cell communication. Yamauchi has performed around the world and has released released 14 albums and 3 movies. He is also the leader of Salmosax Ensemble.

Lives in Kyoto. Graduated from Osaka University of Arts. Experienced in improvisation and classical music as well as dance and theatrical music production. His first album “Red Field” was released with the support of Wire Magazine.

Japanese alto sax player Katsura Yamauchi is a unique figure in the Japanese experimental, avant-garde scene. He comes from the industrial town Beppu, far from the traditional creative centers in the bigger cities of Japan. He picked up the saxophone in the early seventies while he was in his early twenties, but only in 2002 he quit his day job and dedicated himself fully to music. He has developed a highly original approach, investigating his instrument’s nuanced sonic properties as a vehicle for transforming and mutating breaths and spare blows.

The duo Aki, with guitarist Akinori Yamasaki, often a trio with bass player Hirotoshi Yonemasu, performs Yamauchi’s original compositions, focusing on sounds moving back and forth in the pulse of time and space. Saging is the debut album of Aki, recorded in December 2018 after Yamauchi and Yamasaki completed tours in Taiwan and Japan. Yamauchi also photographed and designed the cover art.

The music of Aki moves in clear, modest, melodic lines, creating its very personal sonic universe that explores how the minimalist gestures spread gently and patiently in space, but it is devoid of sentimentalism. The interplay of Yamauchi and Yamasaki sounds totally intuitive, growing and branching naturally and finds its own melodic core in its unhurried pace. The addition of Yonemasu on three pieces adds a subtle rhythmic layer.

A letter from Akio Suzuki

Listening to Aki felt wonderful. The jacket is also simple but very effective.

I first met Katsura Yamauchi at a series of performances and lectures around the theme of breath at the Mie Prefectural Art Museum in 2010. I remember that the curator at that time and the deceased professor of psychology Hiroshi Fujishima were planned and welcomed Yamauchi who was in love with him at the time.

This was immediately after I had lost my iwabue stone flute while I was touring overseas. I ended up performing on another stone flute, the hakoishi, that I had been given. After ten minutes my lungs gave up on me, but Yamauchi continued to play long, minimal saxophone lines. Recordings of both performances were uploaded to Youtube.

I witnessed a side of Yamauchi’s music that I had never heard before. I had an overwhelming preconceived idea of him as a master of breathing.

It reminds me that I first met Akinori Yamasaki at the Kokiji Temple concerts organized by Yasushi Utsunomiya. That night, the sound of his dynamic guitar struck my ears with such freshness! Later, after he moved to Tango, he put all his focus on how to breathe life back into a popular instrument like the guitar in the modern world. When I would see his play, I would secretly observe the strength of his fingernails, and in that strength I can recognize another master of sound.

To me, that’s why it feels like they were destined to play music together. I can say that I felt happy to be enveloped in the safety of the sound they created together.

I truly hope that they will continue to purify the world for a very long time to come.

One of two new items from the Jvtlandt label received this season…the album AKI (JVT0020) by Sagaing is quite the charmer, full of highly melodic and slightly eccentric tunes with a jazz easy-listening flavour. The trio are led by the saxophone player Katsura Yamauchi, who also composed all the tunes; there’s also the excellent guitar work of Akinori Yamasaki, and the bass player Hirotoshi Yonemasu who appears on a few cuts.

There isn’t much to compare to this very original music, with the possible exception of the even more eccentric tunes played by the Maher Shalal Hash Baz Ensemble. On AKI, the tunes aren’t quite as sketchy or diagrammatic as that, but there is a real simplicity at work here that allows a child-like demeanour throughout, and a certain ellipsis in both the composition and the arrangements. I mean there are a few gaps, phrases left not quite complete or chords unfinished, things suggested rather than outright stated. All of these are good and rewarding qualities, and make this record a compelling listen, when you’re able to surrender to its simple charms (which should not be mistaken for naivety). The guitarist certainly “gets” it; he seems to have only joined the group in 2018, but since then Sagaing have toured Japan and Taiwan. Yamasaki brings a steady pulse with his ripple-picking, supporting the wistful sax ruminations from the maestro.

Katsura Yamauchi has been interested in all forms of contemporary jazz and free improv since the 1970s, and worked as a concert organiser for some time, bringing in appearances from some of the big kahunas in Europe and America, including Bailey and Brötzmann. It’s only fairly recently he picked up his sax and started recording some solo records and group efforts; he did appear on Norbert Moslang’s label for the EAI genre, For 4 Ears, in 2007, and has also recorded with Michel Doneda and Toshimaru Nakamura. Those intrigued may wish to dig deeper and hear the work of his Salmo Sax Ensemble (although as far as I can make out, he’s the only member of said Ensemble). Yamauchi may be something of an “outsider”, to the extent that he hasn’t been actively plugged in to the musical culture that gathers around big cities; he grew up in Beppu, which is a rather obscure corner of Southern Japan known for its hot springs. I’m reminded of my favourite Renaissance painter Piero della Francesca, who didn’t live in Rome and hence was not numbered among the “major players” like Leonardo and Michelangelo. As a result, he was virtually regarded as a “hick” by some commentators, and almost written out of art history, despite his prodigious talent