"For the past decade or so, French alto saxophonist Bertrand Gauguet has developed a reed strategy that involves hushed microtones, yet also uses amplifications to create a distinctive presence in group and/or solo situations. Following time in Japan studying the honkyoku repertoire, plus cementing links between improvising and meditation, Gauguet's expanded agenda is exhibited here. Ironically, except for volume, novel reed techniques have become so internalized, that he can produce uniformly consequential work with or without electronic saxophone extensions.

The differences among the eight solo tracks on Shiro for instance, lie more in what is being created rather than how. Consider, for instance the variances and consistency that exist between "Yügen", where the saxophone is amplified with feedback; and "Sabi", where the electro-augmentations come from a guitar amp; with "Jo-ha-kyü" and "Bloc noir" which are all-acoustic performances. Featuring loud, dissonant and disjointed timbres, the textures on "Sabi" could as easily have been produced by a guitar. But while that pumped-up program encompasses jet-plane-like buzzing and fuzzy oscillations, guttural reed tones may be non-specific, but preserve their identity. More crucially, there's an emphasis on breath control and chromatics remains on "Yügen", despite swelling flanges and intermittent pings take up most of the foreground. By the finale a secondary ghostly line plus buzzing feedback has been shoved sideways to create context for a distinct alto saxophone tone.

Lacking plug-ins, the all-acoustic "Bloc noir" still manages to willfully inflate the alto's sophisticated tone so that its parameters are undeniably established. The track also highlights Gauguet's facility as an acoustic reedist. As expressive, but likely amplified by placing a microphone in the saxophone bell "Jo-ha-kyü" is bellicose and stentorian. As staccato asides swell into harsh whistles and fire-bell-like timbres a narrative strategy that is also magisterial is delineated."-Ken Waxman, Jazzworld

"Heigh alto saxophone improvisations, four acoustic, four with feedback and/or guitar amp. The language that Gauguet employs is not anything particularly new in this field but the combination of precision, delicacy and sensitivity of sound placement is unusually fine, making the disc well worth hearing. The tracks with electronic enhancement recall, of course, players like Butcher in terms of technical approach but Gauguet reaches different levels of sublety and layered interaction-not better, just different, exposing his own personality. "Yungen", the longest piece here at 14 minustes, is a superb, calm variation on tone, the pitches drifting in and out, steadily, beautifully held, Gauguet letting things linger enough that you have the impression of a quiet, night environment with just the occasional breeze floating through. This album was conceived during a residency in Kyoto and the legacy of the shakuhachi seems clear, though Gauguet is never at all imitative. On "Sabi", he lets loose a bit, creating a work the listener might have attributed to someone working an electric guitar in Hendrix-feedback mode, resonating cavernously and very effective. But the larger portion of this disc contemplative, controlled and very strong, an excellent recording."-Brian Olewnick, Just Outside