Name: Carsten Nicolai aka Alva Noto

Nationality: German
Occupation: Sound artist, visual artist, producer, label founder at Noton
Current release: Alva Noto's HYbr:ID II is out October 13th 2023 via Noton.

If you enjoyed this interview with Alva Noto and would like to find out more about Carsten Nicolai's music, visit his official website. He is also on Instagram, Facebook, Soundcloud, and twitter.

Over the course of his career, Alva Noto has collaborated with a wide range of artists, including Mika Vainio, Scanner / Robin Rimbaud, William Basinski, Anne-James Chaton, Frank Bretschneider and Andy Moor. He has remixed works by, among others, Hauschka, Ludovico Einaudi, Machinefabriek, and, more recently, Joachim Spieth.

[Read our Mika Vainio interview]
[Read our Anne-James Chaton interview]
[Read our Frank Bretschneider interview]
[Read our Scanner / Robin Rimbaud interview]
[Read our Andy Moor interview]
[Read our Hauschka interview]
[Read our Ludovico Einaudi interview]
[Read our Machinefabriek interview]
[Read our Joachim Spieth interview]
[Read our William Basinski interview]



The Hybr:ID series was created as part of a choreography, but it also takes into consideration elements from Minkowski’s four-dimensional spacetime model. How, concretely, do these manifest themselves in the process?

In fact, Minkowski's four dimensional space time model is a big inspiration for me in general, not only in terms of the Hybr:ID series. I ordered an original publication and read it - trying to understand it and maybe not fully understanding what he describes. This is one of my strategies: Sometimes I'll take scientific explanation models of how our world is constructed into consideration because they have a very strong poetic element.

Within this four dimension model, the most important element is time. And if you're working with sound, you'll know that time is a very important element there, too. Sound for us, has an ephemeral quality, and can only exist in space and in matter and in time.

Minkowski's drawings were a big inspiration as well. They became part of the artwork for the covers, so they add another aspect for what is maybe communicated in the sub context of the work. It's not necessary to know all of this as a designer. But I still wanted to bring this back.

You've also scored for movies and it's interesting to compare your work for film with the Hybr:ID series. How are these two world different, do you feel?

First of all, I have to say, it's much easier for me to work for a movie than starting work on a blank page. The Hybr:ID stuff is mostly very much based on a blank page. Whereas a movie already provides you with imaginary narrative scripts. There are a lot of elements which are basically already given to me.

So working for movies feels very light and very easy.

Fritz Lang is quoted as saying, “I was primarily a visual artist. I never had an ear, and I regret it.” As primarily an audio artists, would you say you “have an eye?” Does it matter for projects like Hybr:ID II, The Revenant, or This Stolen Country of Mine?

As you may know, I'm not only active in sound. To describe what I do, I love the term "creating atmospheres." I actually started as a visual artist, and sound came into play at a later point. And so my work was a symbiosis or synthesis.  

I think, today, sound in a movie has an incredible strong relevance. I think it's still underestimated. I would go as fas as to claim that sometimes the sound takes precedence over the image. And when, for instance, I'm creating my own short films I'll sometimes start in reverse order. Sound then takes the lead and the imagery follows.

Ultimately, for me, both feel very connected. These two worlds, I think, belong together. I can't really explain why in detail, but for me personally, it feels as though images always have a sound and sound always has an image.

HYbr:ID II comes with a series of graphic scores. Since you've taken a deeper interest in this, how do you see the relationship between how we notate and document music and the music itself? How differently could Western music have developed if we had used an entirely different notation system?

If you're using only certain elements to notate music, then of course, you're leaving things out which have a certain quality or a strong importance. In the  notation system I'm developing, I'm working with technical drawings, principles, or sometimes very poetic elements, like a drawing.

Score notation systems have a really strong importance. I'm a strong believer that we have to develop multiple notation systems, not only one. Maybe each of us can develop their own notation system, as I think we are a little bit trapped and locked into this one and only notation system.

Different composers could potentially approach the same scene in a movie or choreography with strikingly different music. Would you say there can be 'wrong' and 'right' musical decisions in these cases? In which way can some music for such projects be considered 'definitive'?

Nothing's wrong or right and there is nothing definitive. I mean, we're always talking about individuals here. We're talking about individual experiences and about personality.

Each artist is bound to have a different answer for the same scene. It would be terrible if it were not like that.

Some feel that the score to a choreography or movie can no longer be separated from the images or movements. What's your view on that in the light of movie scores like The Revenant or, recently, HYbr:ID II?

Once you have connected them, they will remain connected. The moment you experience a strong visual connection to something, they will only work in combination with each other.

There is something very interesting I do in this regard, however. For HYbr:ID or the Revenant soundtrack or maybe This Stolen Country of Mine, I recorded the pieces twice.



I can record a piece for the movie or for theatre or for the ballet in completely different edits. So these are not necessarily completely different pieces, but they'll have different arrangements or different lengths, with different dynamics.

The idea is to disconnect these pieces from their original context so that they can work without the image, or without this interaction. This way, they become their own entity or have their own narration without being so closely bound.