Minimal Wave Records

From an interview by Brandon Hocura, September 2011:

Tona Walt Ohama grew up on a potato farm in rural Alberta. As a child he had became infatuated with music. When he was a teenager he came across a synthesizer in a music store and immediately purchased it, obsessed with it’s weird unconventional sounds. Shortly afterwards he was introduced to the music of John Foxx and he knew exactly what he wanted to do, his next big purchase was a 1/2″ 8 track reel-to-reel tape recorder. In the early Eighties, Tona started releasing music under the name Ohama on his own Midnite News Music label which he sold through local shops and magazine ads to fans all over the world. He played live shows across Canada accompanied only by a reel-to-reel tape player and provocative props. His innovative self-produced video for My Time played on Much Music and his 1st full-length LP I Fear What I Might Hear climbed the Canadian alternative music charts. After years many quiet years, in 2006 Ohama released the astounding Ohama Box (18CDs & 2 DVDs), an extremely comprehensive and intimate retrospective, his portrait of the artist as a profound young electronic musician. Today Ohama is actively producing music again, and recently released Earth History Multiambient an album of new songs which also includes an interactive indeterminate piece designed to be played on multiple stereos at once.

In August, I had the pleasure of meeting Ohama in Calgary. He was an exceptionally generous host, showing my wife and I around the city and playing new works for us in his studio, all the while narrating a personal history of Calgary and his longstanding musical career. Ohama graciously agreed to an interview and below are the astonishingly expansive results which provide incredible insight on this thoughtful, eloquent and brilliant artist.

To continue reading, please check:
http://web.archive.org/web/20191025203223/http://polyphasicrecordings.com/2011/09/where-do-you-call-home-an-interview-with-ohama-pt-1/