Vaim Sarv is a chronically ill vocalist, organizer, and writer. She is a student of the oral tradition of Estonian runosong which he interweaves with acoustic, bodily noise music and free improvisation. Mutating her voice with extended vocal techniques, his sensual and abrasive sound is interrupted by stories and spoken word. Her performances are gatherings which amplify the disruptive and celebratory power of shared physical experiences. He sings of land and kin, speaks of dispossession and desire, makes sounds of solidarity and silence.

Vaim’s work is tied to traditions of improvised song and storytelling from the Baltic Sea region. She is in search of historical consciousness about these somatic, land-based practices embedded in indigenous Estonian heritage. His archival and social research touches the radical roots of these oral, fleshy cultures—against the grain of Estonian nationalism and its eurocentric tendencies. Her study of tradition is undertaken as a curious, loving antidote to the hardcore loneliness and devastation of the present moment. Her book Radical Runosong: Decolonizing Self and Tradition was published in 2025 by OPA!. A speculative text written with Mia Tamme about this work was published in 2023 by A Shade Colder (accessible version here).

Vaim is a part-time janitor at Massia where he helps take care of things such as basement flooding, foraging, rye bread baking, and sauna building. Together with others in the soil model, she engages with questions of self-organization, community living, and care work. He dreams of Massia as a place for seasonal gatherings responsive to the surrounding multispecies landscape through practices both ancestral and otherwise. This past summer, Vaim co-hosted a gathering for traditional and experimental vocalists with Bua. Vaim is also a member of Daylight Project, an autonomous art collective based in Tallinn. She sometimes heats the wood-fired stove at Logi Saun, where he also helps run a monthly Queer Sauna event.

Vaim writes poetry about wastelands and migration, among other things and takes photos, too, of things such as slugs, cruising spots, lovers, and garbage. She used to host Land Services, a radio show that troubled the distinction between traditional and experimental musics. You can reach Vaim at or on insta.