06/11/2025
Tona Walt Ohama grew up on a potato farm in rural Alberta, where his fascination with sound began early. As a teen on his way to judo practice, he stumbled upon a synthesizer in a local shop, bought it instantly, and became obsessed with its strange, otherworldly tones. Inspired by John Foxx, he soon added a ½″ 8-track reel-to-reel recorder to his setup — and began building his world beneath his parents’ potato farm in Rainier, Alberta.
From that underground studio, Ohama crafted futuristic, paranoid, deeply human synthpop. In the early ’80s, he released records on his own Midnite News Music label, selling them through local shops and mail order to fans worldwide. Live, he performed alone with a reel-to-reel tape player and provocative props; his video for My Time aired on MuchMusic, and his debut LP I Fear What I Might Hear climbed the Canadian alternative charts.
Blending found sounds — barking dogs, lapping waves, TV static — with cynical lyrics, Ohama explored paranoia, media, and isolation. Ever the media-skeptic, he offered two solutions: watch TV with the sound down and add your own soundtrack, or, more directly, “put a hockey stick through your TV.”
In 2012, Minimal Wave released The Potato Farm Tapes. The last copies of that LP are now available.
https://minimalwave.com/releases/release/the-potato-farm-tapes/
https://ohama.bandcamp.com/album/the-potato-farm-tapes
