Alva Noto is the code name for Carsten Nicolai's recordings.
Nicolai is a German installation artist whose installations are influenced by
both cybernetics and John Cage. His audio installations employ "music" of a
special kind, music which is not meant to be music in the traditional sense
of the word.
Rather than a musician, Carsten views himself as a "manufacturer of sounds",
his main (and sometimes only) instrument being a computer.
Carsten was the instigator behind the audio journal "20' to 2000": a series
of CDs designed by a team of design artist and performed by artists of Carsten
choice to provide a snapshot of the state of the art at the end of the
millennium, including his own contribution, the
EP Time..dot (Noton, 1999).
His early musical recordings include Spin (Noton, 1996),
Mikro Makro (Noton, 1997), which is a collaboration with
Mika Vainio,
and the flexidisc track Polyfoto (Noton, 1998).
His mature season began with Kerne (Plate Lunch, 1998) and peaked
with the EP Empty Garden (Noton, 1999) and the album
Prototypes (Mille Plateaux, 2000).
The music employs techniques as diverse as minimalistic repetition,
a musical form of abstract painting, musical pointillism,
industrial music (the early Throbbing Gristle variety),
quantum mechanics (the idea that the vacuum is alive and that reality hides in the interstices of the spacetime grid),
glitch music (Oval, or, better,
Pan Sonic) and
dissonant electronic music (Stockhausen, Subotnick).
Wohltemperiert (Noton, 2000) is another collaboration with Pansonic.
Cyclo (Noton, 2001) is a collaboration with Japanese noise-master
Ryoji Ikeda.
Transform (Mille Plateaux, 2001) is another demonstration of his
audio construction techniques, a sort of summary of his entire career up to that
point, from deconstruction of techno (4) to
LaMonte Young-ian wandering ambient drones (2).
The EP
Telefunken (Raster, 2000) is an attempt to replicate his installations
by plugging the stereo into the tv set and letting the sounds create the images.
The limited-edition EP Uniform (SFMOMA) documents a fragment of
a three-hour collaborative exhibition by Nicolai and Robin
Rimbaud (Scanner) in San Francisco.
Carsten Nicolai returned to his Noto moniker for the
double EP Endless Loop (e, f, g, h) (Raster Noton, 2002).
The EPs
Transall Cycle Part One: Transrapid (Raster-Noton, 2005),
Transall Cycle Part Two: Transvision (Raster-Noton, 2005) and
Transall Cycle Part Three: Transspray (Raster-Noton, 2005)
form a trilogy of music for the age of digital globalization,
restless and chaotic.
The marriage of
Alva Noto's alien electronic soundscapes
and
Ryuichi Sakamoto's ambient piano vignettes
yielded
Vrioon (Raster Noton, 2003),
Insen (Asphodel, 2005) and
Revep (Raster-Noton, 2006).
The austere combination of piano improvisation and improvised noisescape of the first collaboration redefines the meaming of "cold".
For (Line, 2006) collected recordings of the 200s dedicated to various
composers.
The ambient glitch music of
Xerrox Vol 1 (Raster-Norton, 2007) explores both calm and turbulent
soundscapes, from the
cryptic galactic signals of Haliod Xerrox Copy 4 to
to the disjointed geyser eruptions of Haliod Xerrox Copy 2 and
to the slow-burning depths of Haliod Xerrox Copy 11.
Noto's music has rarely been so eloquent.
A waterfall-like rustle makes love to a majestic cello drone in
the nine-minute Haliod Xerrox Copy 1.
The eleven-minute Haliod Xerrox Copy 3 is a tidal wave of romantic chords that has to battle a mysterious supernatural hiss.
The eleven-minute Haliod Xerrox Copy 9 modulates its white noise emission and mixes a bit of melody with it achieving an ecstasy of sorts that borders
on Klaus Schulze's cosmic music.
His most accessible work yet, it toyed with melody at the expense of rhythm.
Xerrox Vol.2 (Raster-Noton, 2009) continued the program but with a
more detached attitude.
The twelve-minute Xerrox Phaser Acat 1 begins with a terrifying
crescendo of machine music, but then settles down in a serene contemplation
of gliding chords and hissing noises.
Xerrox Monophaser 2 paints a desolate soundscape that is probed by alien spacecrafts.
Xerrox Teion Acat injects glitches of humanity in the obscure symphony
of the universe, trying to replicate the magic of Haliod Xerrox Copy 9.
But too many pieces are rather monotonous displays of aimless drones:
the thick clusters of the seven-minute Xerrox Soma,
the harrowing distortions of Xerrox Meta Phaser,
the floating oscillating waves of Xerrox Monophaser 1,
the thin vibrating filaments of Xerrox Tek Part 1.
Unitxt (Raster-Noton, 2008) marked a return to rhythm-based music but via
"aleatory" procedures that would make John Cage proud.
This is actually two albums in one. There is an album of microscopic
compositions (some of them only a few seconds long) that are basically just
sound effects, and many of them quite abrasive.
Then there is an album of compositions that toy with dance music:
U_08, a robotic Caribbean dance,
U_09-0, a "transform" that turns a cricket-like beat into a syncopated industrial funk groove,
and U_04, a mini-concerto for drilling and hissing.
Finally there are two pieces that belong to another album. They both employ
a voice that coldly recites random French words.
U_08-1 is a trio for beatbox, reciting voice and electronic effects,
and U_07 only juxtaposes voice and beatbox but the latter is subjected
to some sort of disjointed stuttering.
Alva Noto and Blixa Bargeld collaborated on the 18-minute EP Ret Marut Handshake (2009) and the full-length Mimikry (2010).
Summvs (Raster-Noton, 2011) is a collaboration between Alva Noto and Ryuichi Sakamoto.
For 2 (12K, 2010), the second part of his tribute to favorite composers,
wasted Noto's talent in glacial and concise epigrams while rarely achieving
the touching absence of Stalker.
Univrs (2011), a follow-up of sorts to
Unitxt, was Noto's (skeletal, nuclear, post-mortem) version of dance music, ranging from the
distorted, pounding industrial dance of Uni Deform to the
almost romantic robotic ballet of Uni Dia, from
the frenzied breakcore of Uni Mode to
the hypnotic machine music of Uni C, and peaking (as far as subtlety
goes) with the smooth glitchy brainwave-like sonata of Uni Red.
ANBB was a "pop" collaboration between Alva Noto and Einsturzende Neubauten's guitarist Blixa Bargeld that debuted with the drones, glitches and noises of Mimikry (Raster-Noton, 2011) over chopped beats and at the service of Bargeld's shrieks, croons and wails; their idea of a program of lieder.
Ryoji Ikeda and Alva Noto composed "music" by manipulating a visual representation of sounds on Cyclo's Id (Raster-Noton, 2011).
The "Xerrox" series was continued on
Xerrox Vol.3 (2015) and Xerrox Vol.4 (2020).
The "Uni" series continued on
Unieqav (2018).
Alphabet (2019) was a collaboration with French sound artist Anne-James Chaton.
Gaia125 (2019) documents Alva Noto's background music for a spoken-word album by German author Kai Grehn.
HYbr:ID Vol 1 (Noton, 2021) collects Noto's score for a ballet of the Staatsballett Berlin, Oval.