Alva Noto – For 2
Posted In: 12k, 12k Recordings, Alva Noto, Carsten Nicolai, For 2, Line Recordings
Comments: 3 Responses
Four years after the release of his dedicatory for record (LINE_026), Carsten Nicolai as alva noto returned to assemble a second recording of compositions devoted to a number of creative figures including industrial designer Dieter Rams, filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky and German dramatist Heiner Müller.
Opener “garment”, inspired by a translucent textile designed in connecting sections, may serve well as a metaphor for this collection of tracks that take as their source of inspiration shifting zones and in-between places, links in chain-letter music, luminous bubbles, fragments of orchestral strings, and slowly decaying resonances. In “anthem berlin” alva noto delivers a national anthem for artists Carl Michael von Hausswolf’s and Leif Elggren’s fictional land of Elgaland-Vargaland. Rather than relying on traditional orchestration, he snaps off a section of a marching band’s snare drum roll and lets the percussive rattle reverberate to a tonal hum. “ans” acknowledges Russian Evgeny Murzin’s research into obtaining sound from a visible image and vice versa—a central aspect of Carsten Nicolai’s work as a visual artist. For this recording, alva noto was invited to draw onto the glass plate of the ANS synthesizer, producing the modulating sound heard on the composition. “interim” and “t3″ were composed for a prize-giving ceremony in honor of designer Dieter Rams. Performed live at the event, the background audio layers of “interim” recalled the alva noto xerrox project in which peripheral sounds are elevated to a conscious composition. In “villa aurora” we find ourselves among the dying moments of a held chord, until seconds later the lid of the piano is dropped shut, amputating its echo forever.
As we listen we are almost aware of this record having breath, as a watchful vacuum draws in influences before exhaling them back into the music. This ebb and flow marks time over for 2‘s reference points, reminding us that creativity is perceptive of that which lies at its edges and, similar to language, absorbs it within. — Andrew Cannon
Track List:
01 garment for a garment (2007)
02 villa aurora for marta feuchtwanger (2003)
03 pax for chain music (2003)
04 argonaut for heiner müller (2007)
05 stalker for andrei tarkovsky (2008)
06 sonolumi for camera lucida (2007)
07 interim for dieter rams (2007)
08 t3 for dieter rams (2007)
09 early winter for phil niblock (2006)
10 anthem berlin for the kingdom of elgaland-vargaland (2006)
11 ans for eugeny murzin (2007)
12 argonaut-version for heiner müller (2007)
Garment For A Garment
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Early Winter For Phill Niblock
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Format: CD
Release: April 12, 2010
Edition: 2000
Available from 12k/Line here
Available from Experimedia here
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Looking forward to this, sounds like a nice combination of the sounds he explored in For 1 and some of the textures and classical influence of Xerrox2 and _utp.
[...] As we listen we are almost aware of this record having breath, as a watchful vacuum draws in influences before exhaling them back into the music. This ebb and flow marks time over for 2’s reference points, reminding us that creativity is perceptive of that which lies at its edges and, similar to language, absorbs it within. Full details here [...]