Alva Noto

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About Alva Noto

Primarily recording under the name Alva Noto, German audiovisual artist Carsten Nicolai is one of glitch music's most innovative and respected figures. Known for his visual works and installations as well as his audio releases and multimedia performances, his work explores a minimalist aesthetic, focusing on basic sine waves or light patterns that are often arranged into intensely complex sequences, as heard on releases like Transform (2001) and Unitxt (2008). Other recordings, particularly the Xerrox series, focus on ambient and drone compositions. As Alva Noto, Nicolai has collaborated with a wide range of other musicians, including Scanner, Iggy Pop, Mika Vainio, and most notably, Ryuichi Sakamoto, with whom he has released several albums, including the acclaimed soundtrack to the 2015 film The Revenant. Nicolai is the founder of the Noton label, which merged with Olaf Bender's Rastermusic to form Raster-Noton for two decades before the labels split in 2017.

HOMETOWN
Karl-Marx-Stadt, Germany
BORN
September 18, 1965
GENRE
Electronic

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