Information/Write-up
The so-called “White Album” is Tona Walt Ohama’s second cassette release — a quietly circulated 1983 project that introduced a small, dedicated circle of listeners to songs he would revisit throughout his career. Recorded in the farmhouse basement in Rainier, it contains the earliest versions of “The Drum,” “Sometimes,” “The Call,” “I Tie My Shoes,” “A Giant Starfish,” and the cult favourite “Julie Is a TV Set.”
Only 50 real-time copies were originally made, and after duplication Ohama bulk-erased the master tape, assuming the project would disappear. Years later, he learned that his sister in New York had saved an untouched copy in a shoebox; that tape became the source for the Ohama Box Set (as the disc LOST), and the original was ultimately gifted to a persistent fan in Sweden who had spent years searching for it.
The Julie-era liner notes later clarified a second, short run: an edition of 100 two-cassette sets, each consisting of one Philips Metal tape and one Ampex Grand Master — a high-quality metal master paired with a standard tape for listeners who did not own a metal-capable deck. These were assembled as a limited set, but the album’s true “first” edition remains the 50 real-time copies.
From these recordings came the Julie Is a TV Set 7-inch, sourced directly from this release and now considered one of the defining pieces of Ohama’s early catalogue. Though Ohama himself has described the White Album as “almost like a demo tape,” its scarcity, raw charm, and foundational material have given it an enduring place among Canada’s most coveted minimal-synth artifacts.
“I don’t think it’s that strong because I was experimenting with different studio techniques… I didn’t have a copy and I had erased the master. My sister found one in a shoebox. That’s the one on the box set. And I gave the original cassette to the guy in Sweden as a gift.”— Ohama
-Robert Wiolliston
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