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.

For more about his current album  HYbr:ID II, read our earlier conversation with him.

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]



Generally speaking, where does the impulse to create something come from for you? What role do often-quoted sources of inspiration like dreams, other forms of art, personal relationships, politics etc play?

Interesting question. I think basically, the question where all these impulses come from already marks a kind of core starting point for me. What is the world we are surrounded by? What is it constructed from? What is reality? You mentioned dreams and to me, they are part of our reality because they have a strong impact on us.

Many of the elements you mentioned can be an influence. But I think we have to see ourselves as a kind of filter. What has a relation to our life and our personal history, our socialisation? What do you want to say about these topics? And then, maybe, it comes to point where you say: I would like to execute a work, which maybe focuses on this idea.

I will say that for an idea for a work for me, it has to return at least three times. You should keep forgetting the idea and if it returns, you'll now that it has a certain relevance for you. This marks the point when I start creating something around it.

When you're getting started with a project like HYbr:ID II, where the piece will be part of larger entity - including visuals and dance - do there need to be concrete ideas – or what some have called a 'visualisation' of the finished work? What does the balance between planning and chance look like for you?

Composing HYbr:ID II, basically, started by having a meeting with the choreographer and talking about ideas, about what you want to achieve. At this point of the choreography, I wiIl not have any work done with the dancers yet. This is because my process for composing for ballet, for instance, starts much, much earlier than the process of rehearsing with the dancers.

So what I do is to ask the choreographer to send me three or four key elements – sometimes even one is enough – about the inspiration for the piece. This could be a photograph, it could be a small scene from a movie, this could be a scientific article. It could be anything! And then I take these pieces into my world and construct something around what I imagine might happen in this work. So I'm constructing more or less my own story or narrative inside these inspirational pieces.

One of the great stories while working with Alejandro Iñárritu for The Revenant occured at the very end of the film.



We had another meeting and had some resumes about the artistic process and the creation and evolution of the results. And he said: "Actually, it would have been much better if I'd just sent you a photograph. You could have started composing based on one frame rather than having finished scenes." That, to me, was a beautiful metaphor - that you can basically see your whole universe in one picture and compose the music based on that.

So, for example, Richard Siegal gave me photographs, scientific articles and diagrams, he gave me a lot about environmental and ecological topics, but also, very generally, about black holes. We're all very interested in how the universe came into existence. And I think this this was the starting point for Volume two.

This is the most important starting point. You're creating a kind of atmosphere, as I would call it, where you have enough space to imagine several elements or several dynamics to what can happen. And inside that process, inside that space, both are possible: Logic is possible, but so is trial and error.

What is also possible is to force yourself into unknown territories or areas, working with new sonic elements, or new software, or new outboard stuff. When we are forced into leaving our routine, things start happening. And this is sometimes a very important part of the process, even if you don't end up using what you're creating as part of it in the end. You challenge yourself in terms of perspective - and then you move on.

To quote a question by music journalist Bruce Duffie: When you come up with a musical idea, have you created the idea or have you discovered the idea?

This is very funny. What is the difference between creation and discovering?

I would maybe say discovered. Making a work means discovering something about yourself.

Often, while writing, new ideas and alternative roads will open themselves up, pulling and pushing the creator in a different direction. Does this happen to you, too, and how do you deal with it? What do you do with these ideas?

Sometimes we do lose the path. If I feel like this is happening, I basically go back to the starting point, maybe even back to what I recorded before starting to work on this piece, just to get back into the initial mood.

Maybe I'll save the current state of the project in a different project folder, and make some notes. The point is not try to follow the alternative intensively, just collect this kind of idea and leave it unfinished, maybe, and return to it later. It's a bit like you're running another kind of loop, you do go back to the starting point and follow the ideas from the beginning rather than being distracted. This is a very common problem in digital productions. You have all these possibilities.

To avoid this kind of distraction, I really dedicate myself to one project, and then don't work on any other projects during this time. I will only start on something new once this project is finished. I would not try to work on two things in parallel - this would be highly difficult for me.

There are many descriptions of the creative state. How would you describe it for you personally? Is there an element of spirituality to what you do?

I will say that piece has to speak and be relevant to me, it's not enough to have just these finished pieces. They need to create something with your feelings.

You can call this spirituality. But as we know, sound has an incredibly direct connection to your consciousness without any kind of intellectual level in between. I think this is its strength and the beauty of working with sound. This should be maintained.

And yes, it 100% has a spiritual quality as well as a sense of poetics.  

After finishing a piece or album and releasing something into the world, there can be a sense of emptiness. Can you relate to this – and how do you return to the state of creativity after experiencing it?

It's a very interesting question, because I think you must be an artist yourself to ask it. Many people don't know that, as part of the creative process, you fall into what I call "holes" - you fall into an emptiness, as you describe it. Unfortunately, this is just a part of it, you can't avoid this kind of situation.

That said, there are strategies on how to soften their impact or how to fill the void. I think over the years I have found my own strategies, how to do that. But probably each artist is a little bit different.  

Since I dive really, really deep into a topic, after I finish it, I mostly need a little time to return to normal reality. It can help if you have friends, family, kids because they will help to bring you back as well.

You have to ground yourself. Once you've achieved this grounding, a new creative process can start.

Creativity can reach many different corners of our lives. Do you personally feel as though writing a piece of music is inherently different from something like making a great cup of coffee? What do you express through music that you couldn't or wouldn't in more 'mundane' tasks?

I would like to answer this on a spiritual level. Sometimes I can see a lot of things happening in an object.

To me, it becomes apparent when visiting Japan and seeing this animistic element in the spiritual life of the people. They're paying so much attention to material surfaces, qualities, objects, living things. And if you like coffee, probably a good cup of coffee can be a great workout, too.

But for me music is not a found object. Maybe when I'm listening to a piece, it recalls one specific moment of your life - so it's speaking to you very individually rather than universally. Maybe you can remember things much easier sonically.

I think if you have a sensibility for opening these channels up that you can find freedom and beauty and complexity and interesting things in any kind of object - not necessarily only in things you created.