ALVA NOTO – XERROX VOL. 5
No less than four years after 2020’s Volume 4, we finally can welcome the closing part of the Xerrox series that Alva Noto (Carsten Nicolai) started in 2007. I doubted the series would ever come to a close, because of other releases that came in between, like HYbr:ID I-III and various movie soundtracks.
The Xerrox series is based on the concept of repeating digital copies as in a sonic photocopier, each time with subtle distortions, and finding out what happens to the sound. Can (digital) distortion evoke emotional resonance? This was perhaps most clear in the first part of the series (2007), but later in the series the music became more personal and emotional – including more melodic layers to temper the abstract, digital edge. It felt as if the xeroxed artifacts slowly disappeared into the background.
Volume 2 appeared in 2009, and it wasn’t until 2015 that Volume 3 – an attempt to make the unknown and the infinite tangible – was released. Volume 4 departed from abstract sounds to create a more vulnerable and accessible work. Nicolai referred to it as a ‘love story’.
Xerrox Vol. 4 was arranged for performances with Ensemble Modern in 2021 (Frankfurt, Germany) and in 2024 on November Music in Holland. (If you’re interested in how the sounds of Xerrox Vol. 4 translate into ensemble arrangements: the full 2021 performance is still available on YouTube.)
And now here is the concluding edition, finally completing the word X.E.R.R.O.X. spelled by the five covers.
“The copying process is now less visible through software manipulation; rather, it unfolds as the artist describes melodic and acoustic images that are then manipulated, copied, and transformed into new patterns during composition.”
The performances with Ensemble Modern have left their mark on the latest edition: “This experience of working with acoustic classical instruments has flowed into the compositional process for Xerrox Vol. 5. Certain instruments are designed with potential orchestral translation in mind.”
It’s not hard to imagine how Vol. 5 will sound in a string arrangement setting, so who knows what the future may bring.
Volume 5 is even more personal and emotional than Volume 4. It is ’embued with melancholy and the bittersweet essence of farewell’. And that is not just the farewell to the series, but also farewell to people who were close to Nicolai. Such as the passing of Ryuichi Sakamoto, with who Carsten Nicolai has often worked (and who was an admirer of the Xerrox series).
The subtitles of the different parts of the series are an indication of its expanding universe: Old World (Vol.1), To The New World (2), Towards Space (3), Transit Extrasolar Territories And Inner Worlds (4), and, finally, Sailing With The Ion Wind In The Ocean Of Dissolution (5).
Together, the series is a fascinating journey that starts with abstract and somewhat distant electronics but gradually transforms into melancholic and sensitive arrangements fit for orchestra performance.
ALVA NOTO – XERROX ARC