tom osman

Back at the turn of the century (how strange it feels to write that phrase) Tom Osman was a shy, young, displaced Australian living in Glasgow, Scotland, dreaming of playing guitar in a band. 

Alongside close friend Michael Quinn he formed BOX (With an upside down B, inside out O and back to front X they'd always say - rarely anyone appreciated the joke).

A little later the duo became a five piece and BOX became RedSun. Together the five friends played the pub circuit around Glasgow, made one EP and self-released it on CD (back when bands did that). 

Sometimes the band's bass player would disappear, but he'd always pop up at the weekly rehearsal. If nothing else, RedSun always managed to keep to their rehearsals. 

Legend has it that the great DJ John Peel was handed one of the band's CDs shortly before he died. Whether he had a chance to listen to it, we'll probably never know. 

RedSun splintered and Tom ended up in Oxford. With former RedSun guitarist/keyboard player Neil McKeown (now living in London) he formed Midnight Boatman. 

With a seeming revolving-door of female singers (like The Beautiful South of the underground) Tom and Neil became joint singer/ bassist/ guitarist/ songwriters. 

Midnight Boatman played shows in Oxford, they played shows in London, they recorded and put out on EP on CD and then they spent far too long going down production/ mixing rabid-holes to make a full album which they never finished and the Midnight Boatman project burned out. 

Tom moved to Cardiff, Wales, then Prague, Czechia and licked his wounds. 

Having spent his 20s and 30s visualising various musical and creative accomplishments, Tom saw his 40th birthday approaching and thought: fuck, I need to start finishing things. 

Living in Düsseldorf, Germany at this stage, Tom was inspired to take a couple of songs from the Midnight Boatman days, write a few new ones and start a new process of putting some of the odd, unsettling, existential stories he'd been writing to music. 

A few months later, with the help of Neil and another former RedSun member Mark McKellen, Tom had completed his first solo album. 

The debut album 'so much for all in a day's work' was released in 2022, a combination of semi-acoustic songs, stories and instrumentals. 

In 2023, now based in Berlin, Tom created 'Industrial State of Mind', a spoken-word/sound collaboration with Canadian sound maker existent/nonexistent — released on Spanish label Drama Recorder. 

Returning to the UK after eight years away, Tom completed another collaboration — this time with sound maker (and owner of Drama Recorder) Augurio Drama. 

This latest project sees Tom going further into exploring Industrial/Noise and taking inspiration from bands like Coil, Throbbing Gristle and Whitehouse. Not an acoustic guitar in sight on this one. 

The process has begun for the next album — a second collaboration with existent/nonexistent. 'Devil Girl and Her Latin Mushrooms' will appear some time in 2025. 

The music of Tom Osman is the soundtrack to a half-remembered dream. Dark lullabies and voices emerging out of the unconscious.