Thursday 23 April 2026, 7.30pm
“The third and last evening of Bohman’s stint ranges from a novel interpretation of hospital radio to outré chansonnettes via two rounds of hardcore empirical improvisation.”
You could call the Anglo-Gallic trio Secluded Bronte hyper-original, genre-fluid, strange, funny and thrilling, or quite simply you could just use these two words “peak” and “entertainment”. The group return to the hallowed spatial dimensions of Cafe Oto armed with a sparkling set of new material so effulgent it would make a kaleidoscope weep.
For this concert Richard Thomas, Adam Bohman and Jonathan Bohman are joined by star of stage and screen, Claudia Duffy. Claudia has trod the boards at The Royal Court, Arcola, The Lyric, The Globe, Vienna's English Theatre and many other theatres. Her television credits include: The Queen’s Lost Uncle (Channel 4), Honky Sausages (UK Play), The Bill (Carlton), The Tenth Kingdom (Carnival Films) and The Four Feathers (Jaff Films). She has lent her voice to numerous video games and BBC Radio Drama.
Tom Scott (saxophones, reeds, electronics) and Adam Bohman (prepared strings, found objects, vocals) are South London neighbours and have performed and recorded together for many years in the framework of experimental free improvisation. So although you might not believe their perception is extra sensory you would have to acknowledge a certain remarkable acuity of musical intent. A consanguinity that results in unique sonic textures.
The Custodians Of The Realm are a London-based trio of working with text,compositions and improvisation. They have performed at festivals in Berlin, Sicily and London, hosted workshops in universities and curated the the 'Iklektik Horse Festival' in 2018. The Custodians line-up is Adam Bohman, Sue Lynch and Adrian Northover.
Diastolic Murmurs formed in 1985. Adam Bohman and Richard Crow began their findings inside Philip Wachsmann’s Electronic Music Studio at the City Literary Institute, London—an electro-acoustic lab now erased, but still resonant.
Their practice is pseudo-medical, visceral, and invasive. Objects—preferably damaged, broken, or discarded—are opened up and interrogated. Contact microphones are directly injected. Sound is extracted, not performed. What emerges is an inner, occult anatomy: rupture, friction, residue.
For this performance at OTO, Live Electronic Dissections #8, Diastolic Murmurs will again be augmented by Clive Graham (Paradigm Discs/Morphogenesis). A retrospective zine, Un Cadavre, will also be launched—almost 35 years of material, methods, and medical instrumentation laid out on the slab.
“Sometimes it helps to close your eyes.”
Secluded Bronte - Richard Thomas, Adam Bohman, Jonathan Bohman - formed in London and launched in New York City in 2002. They released their first album, Secluded In Jersey City, on the Pogus label.
Secluded Bronte resist classification. They've been compared to This Heat, Wire, The Specials, John Zorn, Jean-Luc Godard, Ennio Morricone, Talk Talk, The Residents, The Fall, John Cage and Sun Ra. They sound like none of those artists. They sound a bit like some of them. But those artists sound like other artists too. Secluded Bronte have made radio dramas, performed sketches and plays and made visual art. Currently they're working on a feature film as writers, actors, producers and composers. Therefore trying to classify them is a waste of time, the only thing you can conclude is that elusivity is the aspect that best defines Secluded Bronte. But, if you really need a summary then a long time fan, the comedian Stewart Lee, has probably come up with the best appraisal so far:
“People who hate my stand-up often deny it even constitutes ‘comedy’. Doubtless many would wonder if the work of the veteran improvisatory trio Secluded Bronte should be considered ‘music’. Instruments may be involved, perhaps furniture, maybe even words, or all three in a chance collision of calculated heterogeneity.” - Stewart Lee.
https://fforddallan.bandcamp.com
Tom Scott – reeds & electronics – has been involved in music making since the early 80s. Interested in a wide range of musical genres (composed, devised, written and improvised) and has played in many different settings; alt rock, jazz punk, graphic scores, urban folk, soundtracks and scapes. He has collaborated with numerous musicians, dancers, poets and performance artists as well as devising soundtracks for theatre pieces. He has worked with Adam Bohman in a duo and larger ensembles since 2010. “I find working with Adam musically fascinating and challenging. With the array of sounds and sound sources he has, it is like searching for shadows of something you half recognise to work with and build on.”
“Sometimes it helps to close your eyes.”
Diastolic Murmurs formed in 1985. Adam Bohman and Richard Crow began their findings inside Philip Wachsmann’s near-legendary Electronic Music Studio at the City Literary Institute, London—an electro-acoustic lab now erased, but still resonant.
Their practice is pseudo-medical, visceral, and invasive. Objects—preferably damaged, broken, or discarded—are opened up and interrogated. Contact microphones are directly injected. Sound is extracted, not performed. What emerges is an inner, occult anatomy: rupture, friction, residue.
This method became Live Electronic Dissections—audio-visual performances informed by “theatre of cruelty”—and a parallel body of home recordings made at the Institution of Rot, Finsbury Park. These works circulated quietly on limited cassette and CD-R editions, passed hand to hand, archived imperfectly.
Not industrial by definition, but undeniably aligned. The group’s severe output—early releases, tape covers, photographs, posters, collages, zines—shares a bloodline with transgressive industrial and noise culture. Bohman and Crow remain obsessive home-tapers. Early material still festers online, preserved by tape archivists such as Mors Mea and Celestial Railroad. More recently, certain fragments have resurfaced via Nostalgie de la boue, Psych.KG, and scatterArchive. There are rumours that their seminal debut Electro-Medicine may yet be exhumed by Hospital Productions. No confirmation. No pulse.
The Custodians Of The Realm are a London based trio working with text, compositions and improvisation.
The Custodian's have performed at festivals in Berlin, Sicily and London, have hosted workshops in universities and curated the 'Iklectik Horse Festival'
