Alva Noto - Xerrox Vol.5

After nearly two decades, Carsten Nicolai brings his Xerrox series to a close with Volume 5, released on his own Noton label in 2024. What began as an exploration of copying, of images and sounds becoming more memorable than the originals they were duplicated from, ends here as something far more personal. Nicolai has described the arc of the series as a journey through buildup, exploration, and resolution, drawing comparisons to the Odyssey and to Jules Verne's Captain Nemo stories, and this final chapter carries the weight of that full journey behind it.

Compositionally, Vol. 5 marks a real departure from the method that defined the series. Rather than working from copied and degraded samples, Nicolai wrote original melodies here, shaped by his recent work scoring film and composing for larger ensembles, and the record leans further into classical instrumentation than any prior volume. He's said he wasn't initially chasing strong emotional melody, but found that fragments of feeling kept pushing their way into the foreground, and the result is an album steeped in melancholy and quiet farewell. The passing of Ryuichi Sakamoto, a longtime admirer of the series, weighs on the record too, and Nicolai has spoken openly about hearing people he's lost recognizable in the music. It's the most emotionally direct and personal work in the Xerrox catalog, closing the series not with resolution so much as release.

Mastered by Bo at Calyx with artwork by Nicolai and Nibo, Xerrox Vol. 5 brings a nearly twenty-year project to a genuinely moving end.

This double LP pressing is the way to hear it, a fitting physical close to one of contemporary electronic music's most ambitious long-form works.