Alva Noto – Xerrox Vol. 2 (2009, Germany)
Our next spotlight is on number 870 on The List, submitted by leonardo.
This is the second in a five-album series from experimental electronic musician and visual artist Carsten Nicolai, aka Alva Noto, the first volume released in 2007 and the final just earlier this year (full series pictured and linked below, I recommend viewing on the blog in desktop mode to see all covers in a single horizontal line).[1] The sweet thing about the Xerrox series (and having it now complete) is that you can really drop in wherever you want without knowledge of any of the other volumes, and just because you aren’t keen on one volume doesn’t necessarily mean you won’t adore another volume. They all work from the same concept – essentially, making an auditory copy of a copy of a… – but have different starting material, a different approach, and ultimately a different feel. In the volume we look at here, Noto works his magic on samples from the likes of Michael Nyman, Stephen O’Malley, and frequent collaborator Ryuichi Sakamoto. Have you hit the Copy button yet?!
Note all covers IRL are stark black print on a white background, I fooled around with them to highlight the volume we’re spotlighting. The CD cases do look elongated like this though; I was actually introduced to Noto and this series because I saw Vol. 3 in my local record shop and though it looked so cool, I had to buy it to check it out. ↩︎#alvaNoto #ambient #carstenNicolai #electronic #electronicMusic #experimental #listenToThis #michaelNyman #music #musicDiscovery #ryuichiSakamoto #stephenOmalley