Alva Noto

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Alva Noto bigraphy, stories - German electronic musician

Alva Noto : biography

1965 –

Carsten Nicolai is a sound artist. His uses the stage names Alva Noto, Noto and Aleph-1. He is a member of the music groups Signal (with Frank Bretschneider and Olaf Bender (Byetone) and Cyclo (with Ryoji Ikeda).

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 Raster-Noton.

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

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, based on Joseph Nechvatal’s book Immersion Into Noise.

Selected discography

Solo 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)
  • For 2 — 2010 (12k/line)
  • Univrs — 2011 (Raster-Noton)

Solo EPs

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

Solo compilations

  • 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.

with 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

  • 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.