Adam Bohman is an extraordinary artist who is one of the few that actually really do fit that over-played and often undeserved term “maverick”. Earlier this year I heard two tracks from his first recording Bunhill Row made in 1980 using two budget cassette recorders. I didn’t expect to find myself laughing but after hearing Talkin’ ’bout Manilow it was difficult not to, an experience I’ve gone on to repeat on more than several occasions when hearing new tracks or watching youtube shorts such as every leaf is different. Whatever the reasons, I’m drawn to his strange creations and I’ve a particular fondness for his sound collages featuring spoken observations from around London which are segmented and cut by a trademark squeal from the pause button you used to get on those now retro recorders. For me, Adam is right up there with the BBC Radiophonic Workshop and The Clangers…
Over the years he has featured in many bands/projects including Apricot My Lady , Bohman Brothers, Diastolic Murmurs, Morphogenesis and more. His home built instruments laid out on trestle tables have become an iconic image that’s hard to shift from the name Bohman.
What I didn’t appreciate was that whilst all this was going on Adam has been creating and carefully stockpiling an extraordinary collection of collages, ink drawings and graphic scores that only a handful of people have ever seen. Here’s a short film about this side of his work:
Cafe OTO are planning an exhibition at their project space that will present these works publicly for the first time and they are looking for public support to help achieve this through dontions and the sale of some of Adam’s prints.
“Visiting Adam and seeing this work has been one of the most exciting things I have been involved in since starting Cafe OTO. Only a tiny aspect of Adam’s creative output has been seen publicly and this show is a small but important step towards redressing that.” – Hamish Dunbar
