In the past few years a fascinating group of Japanese experimental musicians has been cultivating an improvisation style so austere that even “minimalism” seems too noisy a term to describe it. In Berlin last year I caught a performance by guitarist Taku Sugimoto, the de facto leader of this movement; a two- or three-note cluster of damped guitar plucks marked a major shift, sandwiched as it was between three or four minutes of pure silence. There’s something haughty about an approach that demands you either tune in or tune out completely–even the quiet chatter at a usual improv-music show wouldn’t have been tolerated at that one. But it’s hard for me not to applaud musicians who reveal that listening is a lost art. I don’t know if this performance by Sugimoto’s colleagues Taku Unami (computer) and Toshimaru Nakamura (no-input mixing board) with former Chicagoan Gene Coleman (bass clarinet) will have that extreme spartan quality, but it’s a good bet it’ll be spare. On Unami’s 2004 solo disc, Intransigent Towards the Detectives of Capital (W.M.O/R), miniature gestures–sampled percussion, a quick splash of synthetic sibilance, a barely audible industrial hum–are doled out stingily, and each utterance has a sensual, delicious preciousness. Unami doesn’t play on his new album, Kitsune-Hitori (Slub Music), but the 11 musicians who perform his two lengthy compositions use the same aesthetic, breaking the silence with a terse violin scrape or trumpet blurt. Nakamura, one of those 11, is no maximalist, but on a gorgeous three-CD concert recording on ErstLive with Keith Rowe (see Critic’s Choice for Saturday), Sachiko M, and Otomo Yoshihide, he and his cohorts favor a more sustained web of sound. It’s slow-moving music, but attentive listeners will find it packed with beautiful, subtle details. Mon 10/3, 6 PM, Shin Higuchi Institute, 3485 N. Clark, 773-528-1930, $15. All ages.