LP – Noton

The Xerrox series, which began in 2007, several years before the separation of Raster-Noton into two independent labels, concludes with this fifth installment. For Carsten Nicolai, it represents a laboratory investigating digital aesthetics: copies, radical manipulations, sampling, along with the poetic dimension inherent in the degradation of sounds and the loss of information. Unlike the most recent series Hybr:ID , which began in 2021 with a connection to dance and a more performative edge, Xerrox Vol. 5 closes the cycle in an intimate and reflective way, reducing the use of external samples while introducing the theme of ‘farewell’ through original melodic and acoustic images, which are transformed at a later stage. The work is distinguished by a slow and deliberate construction, allowing a sense of continuity to emerge between the tracks, much like chapters in a single narrative flow. Soundscapes privilege broad tones, layered drones and suspended harmonies that tend to dissolve into grainy surfaces. The focus is no longer on the demonstration of conceptual strength, but on the ability to generate listening spaces that evoke states of memory, absence and transition. The album opens with dense but unoppressive movements, in which simple melodic lines prevail, repeated and evolving to create a subtle atmosphere. More intimate passages then emerge, where the electronic experimentation does not erase the acoustic origin of the material but transfigures it, moving it to an almost dreamlike plane. The result is a more direct language than other chapters in the series,yet remains faithful to the logic of degradation and sound metamorphosis. The ‘farewell’ theme is seen in the choice of less abrasive timbres, in a work that allows space for quiet and prolonged pauses. One has the impression of witnessing a synthesis, where the insights of the previous volumes are reconstructed from a unitary and internalised perspective. If Hybr:ID develops a relationship with the body and the performative, Xerrox Vol. 5 remains confined to pure listening, with no need for visual mediations. Its strength lies in its ability to suggest inner images, linked to the dimension of the listener. It is this personal character that makes the work such a coherent ending: an archive of copies now far from the original, transformed into new material, memory, and testimony. With this work, Nicolai archives almost twenty years of exploration around the idea of ​​replication and loss, delivering a concluding chapter that stands out for sensitivity and balance. Not a spectacular arrival point, but a silent reflection on duration, on time layered in sounds, and on the possibility of making memory a shared soundscape.

 

Alva Noto – Xerrox, Vol.5