With a name taken from a Danh Vo sculpture and a youth spent between the hills of Catalonia and Barcelona nightlife, oma totem makes music that’s both for the mind and the body.
His first EP, exercicis rítmics, released on Hivern Discs in the summer of 2023, was a trippy tapestry of intricately woven percussion. It was followed later that year by a pair of digidub-influenced hardware jams from his live sets, packaged together as a digital EP, wave//constants. Now comes the trick, his most direct statement yet. Released on Kalahari Oyster Cult, the four-track EP moves between bass music and the most mental shades of techno: dubbed up, far out, and cerebral dance music for the small hours.
the trick completes the portrait of a multi-talented artist and versatile live performer. He started out seven years ago, as a member of local collective draft, and quickly became a resident DJ at Barcelona club Nitsa. In recent years he’s increasingly focused on live performance and production, perfecting a hardware setup that means he can play anytime, anywhere. Highlights include peak-time club sets at Primavera Sound (for Boiler Room) and Opera festival in Sicily to leftfield downtempo sessions at Mostra festival and Ormside Projects in London.
He’s also matured as a DJ, adding a more direct, rave-influenced element to his sets, without forgetting his love of meditative bassweight and hypnotic percussion. Beyond Barcelona, where he still plays regularly, he’s travelled everywhere from Mexico City (Yuyu) and Berlin (Arkoada) to Tblisi (Left Bank) and Hong Kong (Minh). An aficionado of internet radio, he held down a residency with EOS from 2021-2022, and continues to record podcasts for the likes of Barcelona’s Canino FM, Radio Relativa in Madrid, and Rinse FM. And although no longer an active member of draft, he continues to organise one-off events and concerts throughout the year.
In 2023 he premiered his audiovisual live show s__olids – created together with multidisciplinary artist duo sol i serps (Crisantos Castella & juns) – with two dates in Barcelona, including one at MIRA Festival. Since 2022, he and juns have also collaborated as experimental multimedia duo res_és_nostre: they were invited to perform at iconic former Amsterdam club De School in 2023. Their debut album – released on Hivern Discs as a cassette with an accompanying book of poetry by juns – blends haunted samples and field recordings with radical sonics and spoken word in their native Catalan. The pair continue to make live appearances while they work on new material.
When he’s not performing, producing or DJing, oma totem is Ignasi Sadurní Viñas, label manager and collaborator at John Talabot’s renowned Hivern Discs imprint. His association with Talabot goes beyond the label: together with juns and Meritxell Bonastre, they released an album of bucolic dub as drames rurals in 2021; he joined the Catalan producer’s live band for the Koraal live shows in the same year; and the pair completed an artistic residency at the legendary Willem Twee studio in Den Bosch in 2022. They’ve also collaborated on a Hivern Discs showcase at Primavera Sound, bringing the likes of Phew and Channel One Soundsystem to the Barcelona festival in 2023.
words by Phil Bloomfield
