It's the usual Alex Ross blend of insightful and dumb (he thinks white supremacy is going to fall because some people get up from the audience and join the pianist at the end of "Crazy Naughty Title"), but anyway worth reading:
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/01/23/julius-eastmans-guerrilla-minimalism
& here's a bunch of the music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxtLoItArrc&t=1h50m39s
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I did not know him before, but Evil *beep* left me with a very positive impression. It’s quite different from any other minimalist or post-minimalist work I recall listening to. Thank you for the recommendation!
I've tried to figure out what it is that makes Eastman's music stand out to me, and decided part of it is that he sometimes makes minimalism sound violent in somewhat the same sense as the Stravinsky of The Rite of Spring. By contrast, early La Monte Young - the Young of "The Fire Is a Mirror" - can certainly sound intense, but not exactly violent.
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Interestingly, I was indeed struggling to figure out in what way exactly I felt the piece to be different from all others I had listened to. By emphasizing violence in place of intensity, I think you hit very close to the heart of the question! I also like your analogy to The Rite of Spring. I feel like, even when intense, both Young and Reich tend towards an attitude of passivity, or, at the very least, of either immersion, attention or both. In comparison, I believe Evil *beep* use of tension gives the piece a sense of eagerness, which is usually absent in most of minimalism.