the strangest, most disconcerting take on any kind of so-called post-rock I have
author: Francois Couture, All Music Guide
I just want to say (and you can quote me on that!) that it is the strangest, most disconcerting take on any kind of so-called post-rock I have heard to this day. The whisper-singing-over-tapes-slowed-down-to-a-crawl has grown into its own rock genre -- one I won't even try to label, as it would spoil some of the shocking experience that is listening to it for the first time. Although the most shocking thing about it is that once you get used to the sound of this "band", it grows on you.
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It's essential for fans of antimusic stuff...
author: Johnny Loftus, All Music Guide
The Pax Recordings roster is obsessed with slurred detachment. The relative light of post-rock doesn't even reach the deep space niche of types like Matt Davignon, Ernesto Diaz-Infante, and Muck; it chokes and dies in the hovering junk cloud of a million unspooled reel to reels. Muck's Roc, in particular, barely registers as avant-garde, since the readout for its whispering and tape experimentalism is so muted. "Albert T. Carmichal, aka Ability to Communicate" (the proper nouns attached to this recording are too rich to be real) delivers lyrics like "Angels wild with the wind each night/Play their flutes on window ledges" in a barely audible monotone; the lyrics are like the half-speak of a zombie daydreamer, only truly discerned with the aid of liner notes. The "instrumentation," as it were, is as it won't. Muck lists everything from "4-track manipulations" and "60hz" to mic stands, pitchpipes, electronic percussions, and turntables as instruments on Roc, but good luck trying to hear any of that distinctly. "The New Ritual" and "Marcello's Angels" are backed by muddled, exceedingly slow series of sounds that never spike enough to count as noise, let alone music. And yet, Roc possesses a viscous gravity that's hard to outrun. At first, the air vent rumble of "In This Hour of Only Illusion" is punctuated with a few clanks and piano key stabs. But your mind soon starts to qualify the dull burble as a needle butting up against a rotating turntable spindle. Again, the lyrics are the loosest of frameworks. "Instrumental" and the lengthy "Sad Song" might offer the most definition here. Both set the levels to fluttering with what passes for a consistent beat; the latter even builds its rhythm from slowed and/or backward looping, à la IDM convention. Muck is a barely tastable acquired taste. It's essential for fans of antimusic stuff, particularly that on the far side of the Skam label.
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It's music - sometimes almost 'songs'- that comes directly from the subconscious
author: Dolf Mulder, Vital Weekly
What to make of this one? A typical Pax Recording release, that's for sure. Low profile, slow rock and soundscapes. Albert T.Carmichael (aka Ability to Communicate) whispers and murmurs the texts written by Tina in the microphone, like somebody who is daydreaming and who isn't really speaking to someone. Sort of 'interior monologe.' Together with And Gnat Vomit, Albert uses a diversity of instruments
and techniques: tape, guitars, keyboards, synths, electronic
percussion, sequenced beats, 4-track manipulations, bass, 60hz, sampler, acoustic guitar, mic stand, vocal loops, sk-1 siren whistle, pitchpipe, turntable, drum machines. All these instruments are hard to identify in all 7 pieces. Both musicians built abstract sound environments around the lyrics, as if you are entering the inner world of someone. It's music - sometimes almost 'songs'- that comes directly from the subconsciousness level. Listening to this cd, my
eye fell on another record here in my room: 'Vocoding Life/Psycho-Akustik' (1980) by german Maran Gosov. Yes,
psycho-acustic music that?s the term I was looking for. This
describes perfectly what we hear on this strange, but convincing cd.
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this gets a HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!
author: Rotcod Zzaj, Improvijazzation Nation
All that comes in th' "press kit" is a note portending to be from Alfred T. Charmichael (aka Ability To Communicate)... I've got a strange feeling about these trax, tho'... sounds an awfully lot like my friend EDI singin' those disturbing slowed-down lyrics; actually, they're not all that troublesome until you READ them. Somewhat along th' lines of what I 'magine Lennon was writing in his steepest smack strangeness(es) - whispers of wholeness, too submerged to sink in to.. DEEPest reaches, to be sure. You (just) can't listen to this with any other background going on... imperative that you descend to th' depths with th' players. Some of th' beats are intriguing, & not just "beats"; part of th' larger (?stellar?) compositional format, without any overbearing electronics. Noise can be fun, & it's certainly more intellectually satisfying than th' debates. In the overall, this gets a HIGHLY RECOMMENDED for listeners who want to hear something that digs deeper into the psyche than David Bowie (unless he was on blue dot).
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