Tona Walt Ohama is a composer and performer of electronic synth music who records music in an isolated underground studio on his family’s potato farm in rural Alberta. He has played synthesizers since 1975, when he bought his first monophonic synthesizer, the A.R.P. Axxe, at the age of fifteen. He has been called ‘Alberta’s Best Kept Musical Secret’ by both !earshot Magazine and The Calgary Herald, referring to his relative anonymity in his home province, concurrent with a worldwide fanbase. Ohama’s early recordings in the 1980s, self-produced and self-released, became cult classics, and he gave many live solo performances complete with his analog equipment and props, including at the Powell Street Festival. Ohama stopped performing live in 1994, and has since focussed solely on recording music. He released Ohama Box, a comprehensive and intimate retrospective, in a limited-edition run in 2006, and has continued since then to produce new recordings.
Artist Statement
I've been a loner and outsider my entire life. I thought that would change as I got older, but it has not. I still do not fit in. Do you?
