Alva Noto

German audiovisual artist Carsten Nicolai stands among glitch music’s most inventive and revered practitioners, issuing the bulk of his material under the Alva Noto alias. His output spans visual installations and multimedia performances as well as recorded music, consistently pursuing a stripped-down aesthetic built from elemental sine tones or light motifs that are then assembled into densely layered progressions, a method audible on Transform (2001) and Unitxt (2008). Ambient and drone explorations dominate other projects, above all the Xerrox series. As Alva Noto he has worked alongside an array of musicians that includes Scanner, Iggy Pop, Mika Vainio and, most prominently, Ryuichi Sakamoto, issuing multiple joint albums including the widely praised score to the 2015 film The Revenant. Nicolai founded the Noton imprint, which merged with Olaf Bender’s Rastermusic to create Raster-Noton; the combined label operated for two decades before the partners parted ways in 2017.

Born in 1965 in the East German city of Karl-Marx-Stadt, Nicolai first trained in architecture and landscape design before turning his attention to the theoretical dimensions of sound and spatial acoustics. After moving to Berlin in the early 1990s he launched the experimental label Noton.Archiv Fuer Ton Und Nichtton to support his conceptual projects. Following a privately pressed 1995 LP tied to one of his exhibitions, he began releasing under the Noto name in 1996, issuing a series of CDs and vinyl EPs built from austere, hypnotic clicks and cuts. Several of these appeared as split releases with Rastermusic, prompting the formal establishment of Raster-Noton in 1999. That same year the label issued 20' to 2000, a monthly sequence of twenty-minute discs offering interpretations of the final twenty minutes of the twentieth century.

Once that project concluded, Nicolai broadened the alias to Alva Noto for Prototypes (Mille Plateaux) in 2000, a fifty-minute collection of untitled collages assembled from amplified electrical hums and clicks and shaped into distinct movements that extend beyond conventional ambient territory into environmental sound design. Transform arrived the following year, introducing a stronger rhythmic foundation to his experiments. Additional 2001 releases included the Cyclo album with Ryoji Ikeda, the atmospheric Opto Files recorded with Opiate, and Uniform, a Scanner collaboration written for an exhibition opening at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

Alva Noto’s first joint effort with Ryuichi Sakamoto appeared in 2002. Vrioon placed Sakamoto’s measured piano lines over relatively restrained glitch frameworks, earning widespread critical praise and initiating an extended series of recordings and performances between the two. A second Opiate collaboration surfaced in 2004 alongside three sharply focused EPs—Transrapid, Transvision and Transspray. Insen, another Sakamoto partnership, followed in 2005, with Rev EP and the Insen Live DVD appearing the next year. Also in 2006 the Line label released For, a collection of previously unheard solo pieces each dedicated to a different individual. Xerrox, Vol. 1, consisting of eroded ambient textures, emerged in 2007 together with a self-titled album under the short-lived Aleph-1 pseudonym.

Unitxt, an album of dense rhythmic glitch featuring French sound poet Anne-James Chaton, arrived in 2008; the same year also brought Utp_, a live recording with Sakamoto and Ensemble Modern issued on both CD and DVD. Xerrox, Vol. 2 followed in 2009, incorporating material generated by Sakamoto, Michael Nyman and Stephen O’Malley. In 2010 Nicolai teamed with vocalist Blixa Bargeld (Einstürzende Neubauten, Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds) under the name ANBB, releasing the EP Ret Marut Handshake and the full-length Mimikry, while For 2 also appeared that year.

The fourth Sakamoto collaboration, Summvs, was issued in 2011; a limited five-CD box set simultaneously gathered the duo’s complete recorded work to date. Nicolai’s own Univrs, an aggressive and intricate solo album, likewise surfaced in 2011. Décade, a project uniting Nicolai with Chaton and the Ex’s Andy Moor, came out in 2012, the same year that saw the launch of Diamond Version, a Bender partnership that explored a more accessible, dance-oriented facet of the Raster-Noton sound. Signed to Mute, the pair released five EPs between 2012 and 2013 before delivering the 2014 album CI, which featured guest vocals from Neil Tennant of Pet Shop Boys, Kyoka and Leslie Winer.

Nicolai resumed solo activity as Alva Noto with Xerrox, Vol. 3 in 2015. Together with Sakamoto and Bryce Dessner he composed the score for the hit film The Revenant, earning a nomination for Best Original Score at the 2016 Golden Globe Awards and for Best Film Music at the 2016 British Academy Film Awards. Early 2016 brought Leaves of Grass, an EP on Morr Music containing spoken-word contributions from Iggy Pop and additional music by Tarwater.

Raster-Noton disbanded in May 2017, leaving Bender to operate the Raster label and manage the former joint catalog while Nicolai retained his own back catalog and continued releasing under Noton. Three Alva Noto titles appeared on the revived imprint early in 2018: Live 2002 (with Vainio and Ikeda), Glass (with Sakamoto) and the solo album Unieqav. Two: Live at the Sydney Opera House, documenting a 2018 performance with Sakamoto, followed in 2019. That year also saw Alphabet, another Chaton collaboration. In 2020 Alva Noto issued an ambient reinterpretation of the Cure’s “A Forest” together with Xerrox, Vol. 4; HYbr:ID I appeared the next year.