Some nice news around here is that Jeff Witscher/Rene Hell has been living in town for the last month or two(just a few blocks from Eggy HQ, actually). Getting to catch a live Rene Hell set was a treat, and I was also able to grab a handful of copies of some otherwise out-of-print Agents of Chaos titles for the distro:

Flowerman/Rene Hell - split - Agents of Chaos
I can't decide how much I like the Flowerman half of the tape but it's certainly a surprise and not what usually comes my way via cassette -- clean, open, chirping electronics, a lot like the Audiodregs releases I was into as a teenager. It does get a little "weird" for the last track but still quite reserved. It's nice stuff for sure, and I do enjoy listening to it. The Rene Hell side is divided up between the sparse, stark, deep-space electronics like on the Porcelain Opera LP on Type, and the more traditional analog synthesizer sound heard on his split with Pete Swanson. Solid all around. $7

Keith Fullerton Whitman - Live Generators (1.5) - Agents of Chaos
For the last few years, it seems, Keith Fullerton Whitman has been exploring "automated synth music," which as far as I understand, means the use of some kind of environmental or non-musical input to direct the parameters(pitch, panning, tempo, etc.) of the audio being created. If you are worried that these pieces would be interesting without being very enjoyable, you need not be. The music here is rich, strange and dynamic, and fairly briskly paced given the 20-minute lengths of the two pieces here. At the core of these recordings is the rhythmic burble of synthesized tones, which sometimes drift in pulsing equanimity and other times swerve and de-tune into more evil territories. All in all, a nice antidote to the current overabundance of "nice" synthesizer music, as can be attested to by the audience member who closes out side A with his refrain of "Fuck that! Fuck that! Bullshit! Fuck that!" $7

Any Given Sunday - Take Me To Your Dealer - Agents of Chaos
This is, I believe, the debut release of Any Given Sunday, a duo consisting of Keith Fullerton Whitman and Geoff Mullen. As readers of this blog might already know, I am a big fan of both of them, and have been since my days as a student in Providence. Quite unlike either of their solo projects, this collaboration finds the duo rolling first with a molasses-slow Cluster beat, slowly layering on, then peeling back, all manner of synthesizer swoops and squawks, then on the flip leaving only the pulse to anchor their electronic explorations. I mentioned Cluster, but these tracks are refreshingly non-referential(to these ears, anyway), and they float in a sparse, zero-gravity zone that is immersive without being "blissed-out" or cloying. These early explorations point toward an interesting future, and I hope the releases keep coming from this collaboration. $7