Carl Crack, who had just turned 30 in May, had a history of mental illness. The band had taken a one year break to allow him time to seek psychiatric help. He and ATR/DHR mainman Alec Empire hadn't spoken in a year, but had been emailing each other recently.

Alec Empire describing his musical styles;"Carl deconstructs the influences of early hip-hop, old school electronic, 808 rhythms and explorations into pure noise and combines it with sampled political statements and his own poetry to create a new experimental musical context which illustates the tensions he finds in today's society".

"he paints the coldness, the sense of isolation and depression that can exist even in the most crowded places".

It is believed there was a huge deterioration in his health tied to years of over abuse of alcohol and pills. He was found in his Berlin apartment on September 6.