Review: Greg Davis - Eyebright (Agents of Chaos, 2011)

Greg Davis' offering from Jeff Witscher's Agents of Chaos gives us two sides of widely different approaches to electronic music. "The Identity of Relative & Absolute" takes up the entirety of side A and is an abstract patchwork (see what I did there?) of skeletal, echoed and glitched out synth madness, topped with Greg's voice reading a poem under the same name as the track. The poem, read in a deadpan manner, processed almost beyond recognition (with some words still recognizable under pointilistic noise), becomes less a work of poetry and more a dadaistic stream of consciousness, a Kurt-Schwitters-meets-Florian-Hecker affair. The track is an ever-changing amoeba of sound, clicking sequences intertwining and stacking upon one another, slowing down and speeding up at a whim. Around the 10 minute mark, a rudimentary wall of synth drone envelopes everything else, pulsing and changing channels from left to right to make way for more dada zen poetry. The drone then graduallaly disintegrates, changing pitch at first, finally devolving into a deranged assault of amphetamine-fueled synth patches and fragments of sequences falling apart.

Side B, entitled "Full Spectrum (Part IV)" gives a rest and a shelter from the aggressive synthesis of side A, with shimmering drones and gentle pulsations which also speed up and slow down, like a relict of the previous track, still reminding us we are with Greg Davis here and that we should remember what he's capable of. But thankfully, side B is over 20 minutes of healthy floating bliss. Greg Davis surely is a synth giant, capable of creating engaging contrasts and adventurous atmospherics. I also can't stop to admire the packacing - Agents of Chaos is on the top of the game with their neat, clean-cut packaging giving all the information you'll need about the tracks, the time and the label's address. With the label's beautiful, futuristic artwork and cutting-edge electronic music I have a feeling this isn't my last time with this Agents of Chaos (as a matter of fact, I'm eagerly waiting to buy Personable's Human Disco from the very same AoC batch)!

Greg Davis' Eyebright is still available of Mimaroglu.