Carsten Nicolai (September 18, 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
