Colin Clarke, Fanfare magazineThe chattering Minimalism of John Mayrose’s Random Access for alto saxophone and electronics is a glorious celebration of both the techniques of Minimalism—how pieces grow through the repetition of a seed—and of the sax itself, as samples of the performer are retrieved and superimposed, eventually to create a whole orchestra of saxophones as the player seems to react to his own gestures. Various plateaux are encountered en route. The title, Random Access, refers to a computer’s RAM (Random Access Memory). It begins a journey through a selection of pieces for saxophone and electronics, a combination that is the performer, Drew Whiting’s, passion.The music of Judith Shatin is no stranger to the pages of Fanfare. Here, the timbre darkens considerably as For the Fallen begins, a piece originally for trumpet and electronics but heard here on soprano sax. The electronic component is derived from the “Capana del Cauditi” (Bell for the Fallen) in the original dedicatee’s hometown of Rovereto on Italy. Shatin’s thoughts dwelt on those who fell in World War I and wars thereafter; the piece took on much further reverberations for the present performer, as his father had died just a couple of weeks before the recording sessions for most of this album began (only Mayrose’s piece was recorded in 2017; the balance in June 2019). If that sense of loss is heard throughout in Whiting’s soulful playing, it must have been particularly poignant here. An incredibly lachrymose piece, For the Fallen seems to lead naturally into the saxophone screams and squeals that opens Ed Martin’s Break. This piece has a very specific remit: to explore the harmonic series of a baritone saxophone’s low A. All of the electronic component was recorded by Whiting. Multiphonics are expertly managed in a piece that at times tentatively deconstructs that harmonic series. The title also refers to what sounds like a modern jazz break that is terrifically exciting, skittering through the instrument’s registers at breakneck speed.After that, the soft opening of Jeff Herriott’s as brightness is smeared into memory comes as a shock. The tenor sax sounds for all the world like a French horn echoing through mountains at the outset; the music feels decidedly panoramic. More than just an interlude between pieces, it has a haunting aura all of its own.Alexis Bacon’s Ötzi is named after a 5,000-year old mummy found by hikers in the Ötztal Alps. The idea of tools was crucial to Bacon’s inspiration, and he uses stones, clay pots, and the suchlike to add to the sound vocabulary (you can’t miss them). A sort of dialogue between widely separated centuries—and sometimes a deliberately witty one at that, when the composer plays with regular rhythms before subverting them cheekily—this is both fun and thought-provoking.Also for tenor sax and electronics, Nathan Edwards’s Saudade Study is a study in the blurring of edges. As in a melancholic dream (hence the “saudade”), elements (here sounds) morph into one another. “Ambient” might be an accurate term for the result; I was about to qualify that by stating that was not meant in any way in a derogatory sense and then, upon reading the booklet notes, found the composer himself had used this term in reference to his piece. It is a lovely composition, actually, and perfectly placed within the recital.Finally, there comes Robin Julian Heifetz’s In Lights Starkly Different, from which the album takes its name. Utilizing chance and graphic elements, it sets up a friction between the lyrical lines of the tenor sax and the rougher electronica. It is fair to say that all pieces on the album are best heard through good quality headphones, but this one in particular benefitted, given the work’s intensity. Whiting’s solo sax cadenza, again featuring multiphonics, is spectacular.It’s amazing to see that Drew Whiting is only mentioned in one previous Fanfare review (in one piece, … as we forgive those …, by Erik Lund on a Centaur disc reviewed in 43:2). The up side of that is that this intelligent, beautifully considered disc of high contrasts surely marks the first of many more. Whiting is a fine performer and a superb advocate of the music he champions.