VITAL WEEKLY

Here we have two new releases on Norway's Sofa Music and on both discs we find music played  with a tuba. On the first disc it is exclusively a tuba, but then by a trio of players. Robin Hayward,  who has presented quite a few works on the tuba, which we reviewed, plays a 'microtonal F-tuba',  Martin Taxt and Peder Simonsen both play a 'microtonal C-tuba. This is their third album for Sofa  but it is the first I hear from this trio. One could easily think that this is within the realm of  improvised music, but Robin Hayward composed two of the three pieces, the two longer ones and the trio composed the short one in between these. This is, at twenty-six minutes, is a rather short  CD, with two pieces of ten/twelve minutes and one that is over three minutes, sandwiched in  between. But what is captured with in this time frame is something that is very captivating. These  three pieces are very minimal in development and the range of the three tubas is very close to each  other, so we have this dense, intertwining sound of the tuba. Drone like obviously, but then in a  very natural way. I noticed before that the tuba might seem like a very unlikely instrument for this kind of microtonal music, which borders closely to ambient music, but if you listen to this, it makes  very much sense to use this instrument in such a way. I was reminded of the music of Phill Niblock, but in the live approach of Microtub towards recording, one hears the breathing and the decay of the sounds (unlike in Niblock's own recordings, so another point of reference might be the work of Pauline Oliveros, even when Microtub use no electronics at all. This is however very much as deep listening as Oliveros' music, and it's simply a highly refined experience.