Noton Antivitus

Twenty years after its original release, Alva Noto and Ryuichi Sakamoto’s minimalist masterpiece returns on NOTON on May 27, 2022.

"Glass" is an improvisational piece composed by Ryuichi Sakamoto and Carsten Nicolai, known by his stage name as Alva Noto, for Yayoi Kusama's installation Dots Obsession—Alive, Seeking for Eternal Hope, which ran in September 2016 at Philip Johnson's Glass House. A film of the performance was uploaded to the Glass House's official Vimeo account and website on November 11, 2016, and an audio recording of the 37-minute composition was released as an album on Nicolai's label NOTON on February 16, 2018. "Glass" is an unconventional ambient piece that uses sounds from a keyboard, glass-made singing bowls, and digital processing of the House's glass walls. The composition consists of developing layers of sounds performed over a single drone. It was praised by many professional reviewers as a display of Sakamoto and Nicolai's growing artistry.

Alva Noto goes to his “special place” with a return to the vast, cinematic scapes of his ‘Xerrox’ project on NOTON.

Noton is pleased to announce the release of HYbr:ID III, the third chapter of Alva Noto’s HYbr:ID series initiated in 2021. HYbr:ID III, continuing the trajectory established by its predecessors, crafts a soundscape of meditative and resonant tones. Drawing inspiration from Noh, a traditional Japanese musical drama dating back to the 14th century, the album reflects the genre's distinctive rhythmic movements and its nuanced expression of emotions through subtle gestures. “The HYbr:ID albums are conceived as worlds. My focus has been on crafting them to possess a sculptural quality. Each composition transitions into the next. I emphasize engaging with them in the intended track sequence, allowing sounds and structures to reveal their full dimension”. — Carsten Nicolai