RYUICHI SAKAMOTO, ALVA NOTO — 12 Conversations LP 2x12"

Ryuichi Sakamoto & Alva Noto – 12 Conversations is a previously unreleased chapter in one of contemporary electronic music’s most significant artistic partnerships. Issued by NOTON as catalogue N-068-2, this 2x12-inch edition presents sixteen individual pieces drawn from twelve musical encounters recorded in November and December 2022. The recordings emerged during the same creative period as Sakamoto’s final solo album, 12, but were not originally intended to become a standalone release. Only after completing 12 did Sakamoto and Carsten Nicolai, better known as Alva Noto, decide to shape these exchanges into an independent work. The vinyl edition is scheduled for 18 September 2026. The history behind 12 Conversations is inseparable from the extraordinary creative dialogue between Sakamoto and Nicolai. Their collaboration began with Vrioon in 2002 and subsequently developed across the V.I.R.U.S. series, including Insen, Revep, Utp_ with Ensemble Modern and Summvs. Their shared work also extended into film, most notably the score for Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s The Revenant, while projects such as Glass and Two documented increasingly open approaches to improvisation and live electronic performance. At the centre of this partnership has always been a productive contrast. Sakamoto brings the acoustic resonance, harmonic sensitivity and emotional ambiguity of the piano, while Nicolai introduces electronic processing, digital textures and a highly controlled approach to sound. The resulting music does not simply place piano over electronics. Instead, the two languages continually alter one another, producing an electroacoustic space in which acoustic tones can become abstract and electronic sounds can acquire an almost physical or organic presence. 12 Conversations continues that process in an unusually intimate form. According to Nicolai, the twelve pieces were created through an open exchange in which sounds were expanded, altered, shifted and radically transformed through attentive listening. The material was not approached as a conventional collection of finished compositions; it developed through intervention and response, with each artist reacting to the other. Conversation 1 begins the album's sequence, establishing the premise of the project: a musical exchange rather than a conventional song cycle. Conversation 2 continues that process before Conversation 3 became the first advance single in July 2026. At just under six minutes, Conversation 3 offers an accessible entry point into the album while retaining the ambient and electroacoustic character that defines the larger project. Conversation 4 and Conversation 5 continue the first half of the album as further stages in the dialogue. Rather than being presented with conventional titles that dictate an emotional interpretation, the pieces are numbered simply as conversations. This makes the listening experience unusually open: the listener encounters each piece as another exchange, with no programmatic description telling them exactly what to hear. Conversation 6 was selected as the second advance single, released in August 2026. Its inclusion as a preview alongside Conversation 3 reflects the label's intention to present the album as a living continuation of the Sakamoto–Noto collaboration rather than simply an archival document. The album's official track sequence places Conversation 6 at the beginning of the second half of the first disc, followed by Conversations 7 and 8. Conversation 7 is notable for the presence of a voice by Emma Maeda. The album credits also identify texts by Rainer Maria Rilke and Primal Sound, adding a textual dimension to an otherwise largely instrumental project. This detail reinforces the broader character of 12 Conversations: the music is not restricted to a simple piano-and-electronics formula but incorporates voice, text, acoustic resonance and electronic processing as part of the same experimental field. Conversation 8 completes the first sequence of individually titled encounters before the remarkable Conversation 9 begins. Rather than appearing as one continuous track, Conversation 9 is divided into five parts: Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV and Part V. This is the most structurally unusual element of the album and gives the second half of the 2LP a more extended, sectional character. The five-part sequence occupies the majority of the D-side before Conversations 10, 11 and 12 bring the album to its conclusion. Conversation 9 Part I through Part V can therefore be understood as a single extended musical territory presented through five connected stages. The fragmentation is significant because it preserves the idea of an evolving exchange rather than forcing the material into the conventional boundaries of a single composition. The sequence can be experienced as a continuous passage or as five separate pieces, depending on the listener's approach to the record. Conversation 10 follows that extended sequence with another individually numbered encounter, while Conversation 11 moves the album toward its final stage. Conversation 12 provides the closing statement. The titles remain deliberately neutral throughout, reinforcing the idea that the album is documenting a process of communication rather than presenting a collection of conventional songs with predetermined narratives. The historical context makes the final track especially poignant. These recordings were made in late 2022, only months before Sakamoto’s death in March 2023, and the project represents some of the final musical exchanges between the two artists. Yet NOTON explicitly frames the album not simply as a memorial. Nicolai describes the recordings in terms of continuation, vitality, curiosity and experimentation, emphasising the creative relationship rather than reducing the music to an elegy. That distinction is important when approaching 12 Conversations. The record carries an undeniable emotional weight because of when it was created, but its musical character is fundamentally exploratory. The official description stresses sounds that expand, change, shift context and evolve through listening. It is therefore better understood as an active continuation of the artistic language developed by Sakamoto and Noto over more than two decades. For collectors, the N-068-2 edition is particularly significant. The release is pressed as a 2x12-inch black-vinyl edition with a tip-on cover and special varnish, and the album was mastered by Bo Kondren at Calyx Mastering in Berlin. The physical presentation reflects NOTON's long-standing interest in treating sound, design and material production as interconnected aspects of the work. From a listening perspective, 12 Conversations is not a conventional DJ record. Its value lies instead in focused listening, contemporary electroacoustic composition and the physical relationship between piano, electronics, silence, resonance and evolving texture. The 2x12 format gives the work a tangible archival quality while preserving the album's sequential structure across four sides. Ryuichi Sakamoto & Alva Noto – 12 Conversations, NOTON N-068-2, is ultimately both an archival discovery and a continuation of a remarkable artistic language. Recorded in November and December 2022, these twelve encounters document Sakamoto and Nicolai working with the openness, trust and curiosity that defined their collaboration from Vrioon onward. Sixteen numbered pieces, including the five-part Conversation 9, transform those final exchanges into a work that reaches beyond remembrance. It is intimate without being sentimental, experimental without sacrificing musical sensitivity, and deeply connected to the unique space that Sakamoto and Alva Noto created together over more than twenty years.