Alva Noto
Alva Noto is a stage name of sound artist Carsten Nicolai who uses art and music as complemenary tools to create microscopic views of creative processes. He is a member of the music groups Signal and Cyclo. Nicolai plays with the rules of physicality. Sound is changed and evolved into time and space and transformed by looping oscillators and tone generators. Through these processes the essence of pure electricity is made audible. He works without sequencers, but mathematically edits his work to give his compositions precise rhythmic structures.
Alva Noto is a stage name of sound artist Carsten Nicolai who uses art and music as complemenary tools to create microscopic views of creative processes. He is a member of the music groups Signal and Cyclo. Nicolai plays with the rules of physicality. Sound is changed and evolved into time and space and transformed by looping oscillators and tone generators. Through these processes the essence of pure electricity is made audible. He works without sequencers, but mathematically edits his work to give his compositions precise rhythmic structures.
Univrs
Gatefold 2LP version. Alva Noto's (Carsten Nicolai) Univrs follows on from and develops the concept of the album Unitxt (R-N 095CD/LP). Whereas the focus of Unitxt was on the processing of rhythmic patterns ("unit" = unit of measurement, element) and information ("txt" = data, language), with Univrs the focus is on the conceptual differentiation of a universal language ("universum/universal" = unity, entirety). The 14 tracks on Univrs have evolved from a live context, hence, the approach is…
Summvs
5th in a series of releases beween Japanese composer Ryuichi Sakamoto and electronic artist Carsten Nicolai (Alva Noto), "Summvs" presents passionate minimal electronics, and includes a Cluster/Eno cover. The new album will host its world premiere on may 12th, 2011 at the roundhouse in london and will be followed by a european tour called s in may/june 2011 with stations in rome, padua, graz, copenhagen, brussels, eindhoven, paris, frankfurt, bonn, berlin, leipzig and barcelona. The name o…
For 2
RESTOCKED Four years after the release of his dedicatory for record, Carsten Nicolai as alva noto returned to assemble a second recording of compositions devoted to a number of creative figures including industrial designer Dieter Rams, filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky and German dramatist Heiner Müller.Opener "garment", inspired by a translucent textile designed in connecting sections, may serve well as a metaphor for this collection of tracks that take as their source of inspiration shifting zones a…
Xerrox Vol.2
Last copies, covers have a top corner slightly bent, price reduced... OK, brace yourselves. Returning to his much lauded Xerrox project, Alva Noto has out of the blue delivered one of the most emotionally arresting and quite simply jaw-dropping album's we've heard in recent times. Carsten Nicolai once again shuns the pinpoint precision for which he's become renowned, turning to a more abstract yet harmony-driven working methodology. As with the first Xerrox album, the starting point is a set of …
Unitxt
This latest Alva Noto production is quite excited and rhythmical, especially in the first part (tracks 1 to 10), shaking the audience through multiple communication codes, modulated in sound frequencies that are always well synchronized, touchy and reactive. This seems to be the ultimate recording; an elaborate and synthetic frontier, a computation of the "musical text" fashioned by multiple interfaces and software integrations. When listening to "unitxt", even the unaccustomed listener is immed…
Revep
LAST COPIES Now deleted, this is the super-limited transparent vinyl. Revolving around a collaborative new arrangement of Sakamoto's classic 'Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence', this third outing for Carsten Nicolai and Ryuichi Sakamoto has been once again packaged and delivered with utmost attention to detail from the quite remarkable Raster Noton imprint. Designed to accompany their extensive tour through much of Asia and Europe this Summer, 'Revep' is another indispensible record from two absolute…
Xerrox 2
OK, brace yourselves. Returning to his much lauded Xerrox project, Alva Noto has out of the blue delivered one of the most emotionally arresting and quite simply jaw-dropping album's we've heard in recent times. Carsten Nicolai once again shuns the pinpoint precision for which he's become renowned, turning to a more abstract yet harmony-driven working methodology. As with the first Xerrox album, the starting point is a set of samples culled from external sources; this time around, snippets and r…
Insen Live
In 2005 and 2006 three major tours of insen led the artists alva noto + Ryuichi Sakamoto around the world. Raster-noton is pleased to present insen live dvd as a document of this project. Recordings took place at Casa da música, Porto, Portugal, on june 11th 2006 and at Sonar festival 2006, Barcelona, Spain, on june 15th 2006. Besides material from 2005 insen album the dvd contains previously unreleased tracks such as xerox and barco. The dvd in dolby 5.1 surround sound comes in a cardboard cove…
transform
'transform', originally released on mille plateaux (mp 102, 2001), is now being re-released on raster-noton. the album, released as cd, comes with a new cover and digitally remastered. On 'transform', alva noto means to reduce the aesthetic of pop to the bone. Rather than in pop music, where the basic focus lies on harmonic and melodic forms, on transform they give way to pure rhythm structures derived from only sine tones and white noise, which nevertheless convey an emotional level. transform …
Xerrox
CD version. 'Xerrox is the new, self-contained project of Alva Noto, which like his transall-series (Transrapid, Transvision and Transspray, Raster-noton 61-63, 2002-2004) is intended to be released in five parts during the next years. On Xerrox, Alva Noto works with samples from muzak, advertising, soundtracks and entertainment programs. These sounds we hear randomly in everyday life and thereby they become an always present and available public domain. With Xerrox Alva Noto manipulates these r…
Transspray
Part 3 of 3** This release is presented in three cds: Transrapid, Transvision and finally, Transspray. Across the 3 installments special emphasis is put on the rhythmic aspects of minimalism, utilising Carsten Nicolai's maverick minimal intricacies in brilliant white surroundings. There's a crisp clarity to Nicolai's construction's that's very hard to dissect - you know that you shouldn't be able to relate to this music's sparse trajectory emotionally, and yet, in between moments of microscopic …
Transvision
art 2 of 3** This release is presented in three cds: Transrapid, Transvision and finally, Transspray. Across the 3 installments special emphasis is put on the rhythmic aspects of minimalism, utilising Carsten Nicolai's maverick minimal intricacies in brilliant white surroundings. There's a crisp clarity to Nicolai's construction's that's very hard to dissect - you know that you shouldn't be able to relate to this music's sparse trajectory emotionally, and yet, in between moments of microscopic d…
Transrapid
Part 1 of 3** This release is presented in three cds: Transrapid, Transvision and finally, Transspray. Across the 3 installments special emphasis is put on the rhythmic aspects of minimalism, utilising Carsten Nicolai's maverick minimal intricacies in brilliant white surroundings. There's a crisp clarity to Nicolai's construction's that's very hard to dissect - you know that you shouldn't be able to relate to this music's sparse trajectory emotionally, and yet, in between moments of microscopic …