The Cave of Winds marks saxophonist Tony Malaby’s return to the format of his 2000 debut, Sabino: a quartet with guitar, but this time with Ben Monder in place of Marc Ducret. Bassist Michael Formanek and drummer Tom Rainey return as the original Sabino rhythm section. Their rapport is undiminished, highly responsive to Monder’s distorted, almost death metal-like fields of sound and Malaby’s explorations mainly on tenor sax (soprano on “Insect Ward,” the boplike “Just Me, Just Me”, and part of the title track). Monder had worked in a different Malaby quartet, the one heard on Paloma Recio (2009) and Incantation Suite (2016). On The Cave of Winds, the guitarist is more consistently raw, on the edge, either playing written parts with Malaby or soloing in counterpoint, sculpting noise or laying down big, swelling chords. Malaby starts out swinging on the opening “Corinthian Leather”, then switches focus to extended techniques—non-pitch sounds, overtones, microtones—on the freer, lengthier “Recrudescence”. His tribute to bassist Mark Helias, “Life Coach”, features just tenor and drums, but one can almost imagine Helias playing with them (Helias’ long-standing trio Open Loose features Malaby and Rainey).