Microtub is the only trio of tuba players focusing on microtonality in both improvised and composed music. This experimental trio features British Robin Hayward (on microtonal F tuba) and Norwegian Peder Simonsen and Martin Taxt (both on microtonal C tubas) and primarily performs its own compositions, often in Just Intonation using the Hayward Tuning Vine software, but it also frequently collaborates with composers such as Ellen Arkbro and Catherine Lamb.

Thin Peaks is the sixth album of Microtub (and the first to be released by the Swedish label Thanatosis Produktion), initially developed during an artist residency in Andersabo, Sweden, but underwent several adaptations recorded at the renowned Henie Onstad Art Center in Oslo in October 2022. Microtub explores on the new album the rarely heard timbres produced by the acoustic phenomena of the extended techniques of half-valve combinations, while creating distinctive timbres and harmonic spectra based on these unique techniques by each tuba, adding a translucent and mysterious quality to its already enigmatic trio sound.

The four-movement «Andersabo» investigates carefully and methodically, ethereal and almost static, different half-valve combinations, sometimes resulting in surprisingly consonant harmonies. The title piece alternates between the pitches arising from a single half-valve combination and, surprisingly, suggests an elusive, slow-shifting melodic narrative. Once you surrender to the mysterious and rich sonic worlds of the microtonal tubas there is no way back and Thin Peaks only cements this stimulating insight.

Eyal Hareuveni

Robin Hayward (microtonal F tuba), Peder Simonsen (microtonal C tuba), Martin Taxt (microtonal C tuba)