Sruth (2024)
for string quartet and electronicsPerformed by ConTempo Quartet
Sruth was written for the ConTempo Quartet during my residency in Galway, Ireland. Inspired by the currents, always in motion, and by the relationship between humans and the unfathomably vast ocean. While working on the piece, there was something in the air that could not be ignored – a quiet tension, a sense of uncertainty that seemed to move with the tides. Out of this emerged a fragile kind of hope, and a deep respect for the ocean’s beauty and unrelenting power.
Commissioned by the Galway Music Residency
Premiere: 03.12.2024, Galway
and the sky turned yellow (2022/2024)
for flute, bass clarinet, violin, viola, cello and electronics / string quartet and electronicsPerformed by Ensemble New Music Tallinn
The impulse to write and the sky turned yellow came from a dream in which a feeling of danger was expressed by a strangely yellow sky. Time stopped and space started to warp: suddenly it was clear that old ideas about the world and the laws of physics no longer applied. Although the experience was frightening, I woke up unexpectedly fascinated.
5th place at the 69th International Rostrum of Composers
Commissioned by Ensemble New Music Tallinn
Listen to the concert broadcast on Klassikaraadio
Premiere: 24.11 Sound Plasma Festival, Berlin
Confluence (2021)
for flute, clarinet, violin, cello, percussion and live electronicsPerformed by Ensemble U:
Confluence was written for Ensemble U: for the Üle Heli festival in 2021 and has been performed multiple times since. The piece, written during my stay in Lyon, envisions two massive, glacier-like entities slowly advancing toward each other, their movement almost imperceptible yet inevitable.
Commissioned by Üle Heli festival
Listen to the concert broadcast on Klassikaraadio
Premiere: 22.10.2021 Üle Heli festival, Tallinn
Wooden Temple (2019/2023)
for percussion and live electronicsPerformed by Vambola Krigul & Sander Saarmets
Wooden Temple is inspired by a rather hidden small wooden temple located in the Beitou district of Taipei, at the foot of a large mountain overlooking the city. I often went there to enjoy the peace and the beauty of being away. It was one of those places where time seemed to move at a different pace. In the piece, I use sparse sound material that, through electronic intervention, continuously transforms within the space, or rather, the space itself is in constant flux. Yet, amidst all this change, there is peace.
Listen to the concert broadcast on Klassikaraadio
V2 Premiere: 24.08.2023
ERSO V4R1, Tallinn
Albums
Sander Saarmets - Bleu Précieux
Glitch Please, 2025
Bleu Précieux is a body of work that traces the contours of memory, movement and place. Composed entirely in meantone temperament for modular and hardware synthesizers, the album unfolds like an organism: branching, adapting, responding. Many of its processes emerge from generative systems rooted in the natural world, where structure and unpredictability coexist.
ENTER THE ALBUM SITE
Recorded between 2022 and 2025.
Carefully constructed. Quietly alive.
Not an arrival, but a return.
V4R1 - V4R1
Grainy Records, 2017
V4R1 is the eponymous debut album by a Taiwan-born audiovisual group created by two Estonians – Sander Saarmets, composer and Virge Loo, visual artist. The material, recorded from 2012 to 2016, draws inspiration from the mystical island of Formosa, its nocturnal cityscapes and immense forces of nature.
V4R1.COM
grainyrecords.com
Muschraum - Naterijeka
Ulmeplaadid, 2005
Muschraum's debut album Naterijeka is characterized by calm, sunny, even dreamy atmosphere of remoteness, drift in a forgotten and regained time. The listener is in a wide open space for hearing, thinking and being. The space is not vacuous, however; it is full of motion, rhythms and warm vibes. Combining orthodox melodic electronica, abstract sound experiments and minimalism and acoustic instruments as violin and piano.
muschraum.bandcamp.com
Singles
V4R1 - MOTH / MELLITE
Glitch Please, 2025
Built entirely on the expressive possibilities and inspiring limitations of hardware synthesizers, Moth / Mellite is a deep dive into rhythmic dissonance and harmonic fluidity. V4R1 manipulates time itself, layering shifting rhythmic structures to create an evolving, almost hypnotic groove that transcends linear rhythm. It doesn’t just play – it vibrates, shifting from a listening experience into something higher, something felt on a deeper level.
glitchplease.ee
Appearances on Compilations
TERE
Glitch Please, 2025
A new V4R1 track appears on a compilation album from Glitch Please, alongside Olev Muska, Kiwanoid, Stray, Wondering O, Art imitation, !!ii, Oudeis, Kuiv.wav, Gatesleeper and Ill.
glitchplease.ee
Ulmerealismi Tähised
Ulmeplaadid, 2005
A rare collection of Estonian electronica from the mid-2000's, released by Ulmeplaadid.
► Muschraum - Vnevi
Sander Saarmets - Maasikad
Muschraum - Gikam-fle
Reworks
Belle Chen – Ravel in the Forest (Meditative Reworks)
Belle Chen, 2024
► Belle Chen – Lone Wolf (Sander Saarmets Meditative Rework)
Music by || Belle Chen
Reworks by || Sander Saarmets, Sinemis, Bon, Richard Bundy, Brendan Cox
bellechen.com
Lauri Lest - Affect / Reflect - Reworked
Flatfish Music, 2024
► Lauri Lest / Sander Saarmets - reMoulded
Music by || Lauri Lest
Reworks by || DJ Shostakovich, Galaktlan, Recue, Sander Saarmets, Maarja Nuut & Planet Boelex
laurilest.com
The Ebertbrothers - Polymer Boulevard Remixes
Mindwaves Music, 2023
► The Ebertbrothers - MKSTX Lotus (V4R1 Rebloom)
Music by || Axel Ebert, Michael Ebert
Remixes by || Cocktail Party Effect, Ex.Hale, HoeHLE, Karsten Pflum, Mezolozyde, Ravn Jonassen, Serge Geyzel, The Ebertbrothers, Ultra Deep Field, V4R1
mindwaves-music.com
Veljo Tormis – Töötlused: Laulu Jäävuse Seadus
Ulmeplaadid, 2009
► Muschraum - Ilu kaob õue pealt
The album features reinterpretations of Veljo Tormis's musical works by various musicians and ensembles associated with the Ulmeplaadid label.
Soundtracks
Regional_Express
by Petra Ardai, Ella Raidel, and Marlene Rutzendorfer
► Excursion 5: Bad Aussee - Gmunden
A composition by Sander Saarmets
Regional Express is an audiovisual experience on the rail route; a trip from the past to the future. While traveling, passengers can hear the conversation of the Train, the Mountain and Traunsee Mermaid intercut by fragments of interviews with locals. Memories of humans and non-humans retell the story of the Salzkammergut.
regional-express.org
Regional_Express: Echoes of Salt
Echoes of Salt, composed by Sander Saarmets, is a collage of memories and acoustic impressions of unique places and encounters. These sound recordings were collected by spatial audio specialist Matthias Kassmannhuber and Saarmets during the summers of 2022 and 2023.
Echoes of Salt Echoes of Salt emerged from the Regional_Express VR Experience.
Echoes of Salt was commissioned by Ö1.
regional-express.org
Artefactourism: Rumours and Ruins
In the performance Artefactourism: rumours and ruins Valeria Tagel, Sigrid Savi, Kadri Sirel and Keity Pook are interested in the capacity of memory to create identities and communities, and the power, ambiguity and deceitfulness of this mechanism. In what ways are people caught up in the mechanisms of memory, how are they pushed out, which loose ends remain diverged?
The soundtrack was performed live by Sander Saarmets.
► TEASER
Premiere: 08.11 2022, Sõltumatu Tantsu Lava