In her new WERGO album Amplified Imagination, Sarah Nemtsov lets us hear what she describes as the “tension between consistency and chaos”. Using amplified instruments, supplemented and distorted by analogue effects devices – including a Kaoss Pad – she generates an aesthetic experience that dissolves the familiar levels of acoustical reality.

Zimmer I-III

In the middle of this release is her composition Zimmer I-III (2013), a stratification for eight musicians. The cycle is “not conceived as a collage,” says the composer, “but rather as a living organism, breathing, pulsating – with the objective (utopia) of creating a kind of polydimensional structure. With prepared harp, amplified bass flute and bass clarinet, Kaoss Pad and amplified string quartet, as well as laptops, Nemtsov’s work explores sonic borderline areas whose performing indications range from “very ugly”, “brutal” and “grating” to an “aesthetic of fragility”.
Amplified Imagination has been recorded by Sonar Quartett, Ensemble Adapter and members of ensemble mosaik. The production took place in the composer’s presence.