Alva Noto

Carsten Nicolai
Nicolai as Noto, playing live at MUTEK 2004
Background information
Birth name	Carsten Nicolai
Also known as	Aleph-1, Alva Noto, Noto
Born	1965 (age 50–51) Chemnitz, Saxony, Germany
Origin	Chemnitz, Saxony, Germany and Berlin, Germany[1]
Genres	Electronica, glitch, microsound
Instruments	Synthesizer, keyboards, laptop, guitar, percussion
Labels	Raster-Noton, Mille Plateaux, Line
Associated acts	Ryuichi Sakamoto, Cyclo, Opto, Signal, Ryoji Ikeda, Blixa Bargeld
Website	www.alvanoto.com

Carsten Nicolai (born 1965), known as Alva Noto, is a German musician. He is a member of the music groups Diamond Version with Olaf Bender (Byetone), Signal with Frank Bretschneider and Olaf Bender, Cyclo with Ryoji Ikeda, and Alva Noto + Ryuichi Sakamoto with Ryuichi Sakamoto, with whom he composed the score for the 2015 film The Revenant.

Life and career

Nicolai was born in Chemnitz, Saxony, Germany (then Karl-Marx-Stadt, Saxony, East Germany) in 1965. He studied architecture and landscape design before pursuing art. In 1999 he founded the electronic music record label Raster-Noton.^[1]

Nicolai has recently written an opera, Sparkie: Cage and Beyond, in collaboration with Michael Nyman.^[2]

Nicolai has performed and created installations in many of the world's most prestigious spaces including the Guggenheim, New York, the SF MoMA, Modern Art Oxford, NTT Tokyo, Tate Modern and Venice Biennale, Italy. As a member (and co-founder) of the Raster-Noton label he was responsible for the acclaimed CD series '20 to 2000' that went on to win the Golden Nica prize at Prix Ars Electronica, 2000.

Carsten Nicolai also works as a visual artist. Using the principles of Cymatics he often visualizes sound. In 2013, Nicolai participated as a visual artist in Noise, an official collateral show of the 55th Venice Biennale of Art.^[3]

Discography

Solo studio albums

• Prototypes — 2000 (Mille Plateaux).
• Transform — 2001 (Mille Plateaux) & re-released on Raster-Noton in 2008. 'Transall cycle' "approaches the problematics of speed, the vision of utopia and the dissolution of our ideas into fragments."
• Xerrox Vol.1 — 2007 (Raster-Noton)
• Aleph-1 — 2007 (as 'Aleph-1') (iDeal Recordings)
• Unitxt — 2008 (Raster-Noton)
• Xerrox Vol.2 — 2009 (Raster-Noton)
• Univrs — 2011 (Raster-Noton)
• Xerrox Vol.3 — 2015 (Raster-Noton)

Extended plays

• Transrapid — 2004 (Raster-Noton).
• Transvision — 2005 (Raster-Noton).
• Transspray — 2006 (Raster-Noton).

Compilation albums

• For — June 2006 (Line, a division of 12k). A collection of unreleased tracks created over the previous 4 years.
• For 2 — March 2010 (Line, a division of 12k). A collection of unreleased tracks created over the previous 7 years.

Soundtrack albums

• The Revenant — 2015

Collaborations

With Ryuichi Sakamoto, as alva noto + ryuichi sakamoto

• Vrioon — December 2002 (Raster-Noton)
• Insen — March 2005 (Raster-Noton)
• Revep — March 2006 (Raster-Noton)
• Insen Live — October 2006 (Raster-Noton). DVD release. Contains fifteen tracks and video footage from the 'Insen' tour. Recordings for the DVD took place at Casa da Musica, Porto, Portugal, on June 11, 2006 and at Sonar festival 2006, Barcelona, Spain, on June 15, 2006 in Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound. Also contains live tracks from the 2005 Insen album, as well as previously unreleased tracks such as 'Xerox' and 'Barco.'
• utp_ — September 2008 (Raster-Noton)
• Summvs — May 2011 (Raster-Noton)

With Ryoji Ikeda, as "Cyclo."

• Cyclo. — 2001 (Raster-Noton)
• Cyclo.id — 2011 (Raster-Noton)

With Scanner (Robin Rimbaud)

• Uniform: SF MoMA 2001. CD Contains 1 track, "Uniform," performed and recorded by Carsten Nicolai and Robin Rimbaud (Scanner) for the exhibition of ""010101: Art In Technological Times"" at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) on March 3, 2001.

With Blixa Bargeld, as ANBB

• Ret Marut Handshake — 2010 (Raster-Noton)
• Mimikry — 2010 (Raster-Noton)

With Opiate (Thomas Knak), as Opto

• Opto Files — 2001 (Raster-Noton). Limited CD release. Number 6 in the raster.static series. CD Comes in a silver anti-static bag with green card insert.
• Opto: 2nd — June 2004 (Hobby Industries). The CD Contains ten tracks, all titled with times of the day. The collaboration was created in a 48-hour period and was inspired by the restored recording from a cassette found in a forest in Eastern Germany.

With Zeitkratzer

• Zeitkratzer & Carsten Nicolai: Electronics — 2008 (Zeitkratzer Records)

With Anne-James Chaton and Andy Moor

• Anne-James Chaton With Alva Noto And Andy Moor - Décade (CD, Album, Ltd, Boo), Raster-Noton, R-N 135, 2012

With Olaf Bender (Byetone), as Diamond Version

• EP1 — 2012 (Mute)
• EP2 — 2012 (Mute)
• EP3 — 2013 (Mute)
• EP4 — 2013 (Mute)
• EP5 — 2013 (Mute)
• CI — 2 / 3 June 2014 (Mute)

With Iggy Pop and Tarwater

• Leaves of Grass — February 2016 (Morr Music). A seven-track EP on which Iggy Pop performs the poetry of Walt Whitman to music composed by Alva Noto and Tarwater.

Compilation appearances (exclusive/non-albums tracks)

• "Monophaser 4" from "V.a. – :2" (2008)
• "Garment" from "Sound Canvas | 1" (2008)
• "Planet Rock" from "Recovery" (2008)
• "Stalker" from "In Memoriam Andrey Tarkovsky" (2008)
• "Haloid Xerrox Copy 3 (Paris)" from "Mind The Gap Volume 70" (2007)
• "06.1 Quanta Random" from "Tribute to Iannis Xenakis" (2007)
• "Sonolumi (For Camera Lucida)" from "Camera Lucida" (2007)
• "Odradek (Music to Play in the Dark)" from "It Just Is In Memoriam Jhonn Balance" (2005)
• "Re10" from "Landscape 2" (2005)
• "Post-Remo" from "Richard Chartier + Various – Re'Post'Postfabricated" (2005)
• "Party Plasibenpuis (for Rune Lindblad)" from "The Hidden City: Sound Portraits from Goteborg" (2004)
• "Time...Dot (3)" from "An Anthology of Noise & Electronic Music / Third A-Chronology 1952-2004" (2004)
• "m6re" from "SoundxVision 2004" (2004)
• "Obi 2 Min." from "Frecuencies [Hz]" (2003)
• "60 sec" from "Soundcultures" (2003)
• "Strategies Against War 1.0—Covering All Information with White Noise" from "60 Sound Artists Protest the War" (2003) as Carsten Nicolai
• "MM", "Time Dot" from "Raster-Noton. Archiv 1" (2003) as Noto
• "Obi_2.3" from "Electrograph 02 – Athens Sound Media Festival 02" (2002)
• "Menschmaschine" from "Klangmaschine_Soundmachine" (2002)
• "Crystal R" from "Various – Live Sets At Ego 1998-2000" (2002) as Noto
• "M 06 Short" from "Electric Ladyland Clickhop Version 1.0" (2001)
• "Neue Stadt (Skizze 8)" from "Clicks & Cuts, Vol. 2" (2001)
• "Modul 4", "Impulse" from "Raster-Noton.(O)acis Box" (2001) as Noto
• "Neue Stadt Skizze 1" from "Between Two Points" (2001) as Noto
• "Sound Mobile" from "Ringtones" (2001)
• "Prototyp P" from "Raster-Noton. Oacis" (2000)
• "Prototype n." from "Clicks & Cuts" (2000)
• "Crystal s 10 60 sec." from "Computer Music Journal Sound Anthology, vol. 24" (2000) as Noto
• "Crystal.s2" from "Microscopic Sound" (1999) as Noto
• "∞ [Radio Teeth Edit]" from "Various – Because Tomorrow Comes #2" (1999) as Carsten Nicolai
• "Polyfoto 1a-1" from "Modulation & Transformation 4" (1999) as Noto
• "Zeit T3" from "Effe 1999" (1999)
• "POL .Motor", ".Test", ".Versuch", ".Anordnung", ".Variation", ".Modell" from "Just About Now" (1998) as Carsten Nicolai
• "Chemnitz" from "Decay" (1997) as Noto

Remixes

• Björk – Innocence (Alva Noto Unitxt Remodel 12" Remix)
• Björk – Dark Matter (Alva Noto Remodel)
• Byetone – Plastic Star (Alva Noto Remix)
• Greie Gut Fraktion – Wir Bauen Eine Neue Stadt (Alva Noto Remodel)
• Kangding Ray – Pruitt Igoe (Rise) (Alva Noto Remodel)
• Ludovico Einaudi – Divenire (Alva Noto Remodel)
• Machinefabriek – Stofstuk (Alva Noto Remix)
• Modwheelmood – Things Will Change (Remodeled by Alva Noto)
• Opiate – 100301 (Re-Model by Alva Noto)
• Pomassl – Sol (Alva Noto Rmx)
• Ryuichi Sakamoto – Insensatez (Re-model by Alva Noto)
• Ryuichi Sakamoto – Undercooled (Alva Noto Remodel)
• Sōtaisei Riron + Keiichirō Shibuya – Our Music (Remodel Light)^[4]
• Spyweirdos – Wiesbaden (Already Happened Tomorrow) (Schwarzer Bock Mix)

Installations, etc.

• Audio installation in the Piazza del Plebiscito, Naples, Italy, December, 2009
• Opening performance for "010101: Art In Technological Times" at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) on March 3, 2001
• Lovebytes Digital Festival, Sheffield, England, 2003
• Sónar Music Festival, 2004 and 2009
• Netmage, Bologna, Italy, 2006
• BBmix Festival, 31 October 2008
• Club Transmediale, Berlin, Germany, 2009, 2008 and 2000
• Pace Gallery, New York, 2010 ^[5]

References

1. Carsten Nicolai biography
2. "Linguistic budgie inspires opera". BBC News. 2009-03-25. Retrieved 2010-04-23.
3. NOISE: an exhibition organized by De Arte Association, curated by Marisa Vescovo
4. 相対性理論+渋谷慶一郎コラボ曲の高音質音源を先行配信. natalie.mu (in Japanese). 1 December 2009. Retrieved 5 January 2012.
5. alva noto: unitxt

External links

• Alva Noto website
• Carsten Nicolai website
• Raster-Noton website
• Alva Noto at AllMusic