Monday 6 October 2025, 7.30pm
Earworm returns to OTO with Diastolic Murmurs (the duo of Adam Bohman and Richard Crow) - joined for this appearance by Clive Graham of Morphogenesis, plus a duo set from James Shearman and Zheng Hao.
The Diastolic Murmurs (Adam Bohman and Richard Crow) formed themselves in 1985 during electro-acoustic research within Phillip Wachsmann's legendary Electronic Music Studio (now demolished) at the City Literary Institute, Keeley Street, London WC2.
Primarily their (pseudo-medical) aesthetic was to explore as fully as possible an inner visceral "occult" sound-world inherent in any given object or material (with a preference for the damaged, broken and discarded) and their extraction or autopsy with the use of ‘directly injected’ contact microphones. This was given full expression in "theatre of cruelty" style audio-visual performances they called ‘Live Electronic Dissections' and in numerous home studio recordings that took place at the Institution of Rot in Finsbury Park, London and later released on limited-edition cassettes and cd-rs.
Though not strictly an industrial music project – the groups (an)aesthetic and outlook especially in releases and printed matter - photos, posters, collages, zines certainly share a kinship with Industrial/noise music culture.
For this rare appearance at OTO, the Diastolic Murmurs line up will be augmented by the inclusion and participation of Clive Graham of Morphogenesis.
- Official Website: https://institution-of-rot.org/
- Institution of Rot Archive & related on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/nerval45
- Richard Crow (Institution of Rot) on Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/richard-crow
- Richard Crow (Institution of Rot) on Bandcamp: https://richardcrow.bandcamp.com/
soft fantasy is the solo experimental noise project of Lo Moran that conjures a relentless blend of harsh noise, power electronics, and sepulchral dirge pop, laced with an industrial edge. soft fantasy’s severe sounds create disordered atmospheres, pushing listeners into visceral walls of distortion and rhythmic pulses that translate the iprocessing of violence. Each performance is intuited as a ritual of confrontation between noise and the catharsis of melodies. Releases through Unseen Force, Total Black and Mouhoi, and forthcoming through Lake Shark HN, performing in the international underground since 2018.
Shearman is a noise being of (deep) Leytonstone. He carves noise out of objects and ephemera - he kneels at the altar of feedback, lies down in the slowly lapping undulations of seas of static and harsh noise viscera.
Born in Wuhan; based in London. Mainly uses electronics or electro-acoustic instruments for solo and group improvisation – currently focused on exploring the amorphous in different sound spaces.
https://atunnel.net/
https://zhenghao.bandcamp.com/
