Ollie Olsen

Ollie Olsen is an Australian multi-instrumentalist, composer and sound designer.

Ollie Jngbert Christian Olsen (born Ian Christopher Olsen) was born in 1958 in Melbourne.

He grew up with a sibling in suburban Blackburn and when he was 11 years-old the family spent four months in Norway in mid-1969.

He has performed, recorded and produced rock, electronic and experimental music since the mid-1970s.

Olsen developed an interest in electronic music as a teenager in the mid-1970s, studying with Felix Werder.

Olsen has issued a range of work from experimental to film and television soundtracks, pop and dance music, installation projects and has established record labels.

According to Australian musicologist, Ian McFarlane, he is "recognised as one of the key figures in the Australian post-punk electronic movement of the late 1970s. Ever the experimentalist, Olsen's eclectic career in avant rock has taken him from the Reals, one of the original Melbourne punk combos of the late 1970s, through to the acid-house/techno/trance outfit Third Eye. He was also the driving force behind the Psy-Harmonics label."

In the late 1970s Olsen formed two punk, post-punk bands, as leader and vocalist, as well as being a key figure in the Melbourne little band scene.

His punk bands included the Reals and the Young Charlatans.

Aside from Olsen on guitar, the Reals' line-up was Peter Cave on drums, Gary Gray on lead vocals and Chris Walsh on bass guitar.

Olsen supervised the reforming of acts from the late 1970s little band scene and produced music recordings for the soundtrack.

At the end of 1977 he formed the Young Charlatans with Janine Hall on bass guitar, Rowland S. Howard on guitar (ex-Obsessions) and Jeffrey Wegener on drums (ex-Saints).

Australian music journalist, Clinton Walker, described this band as having "inner-city 'supergroup' status from the outset and helped pioneer post-punk rock in Australia."

Howard had written his iconic song "Shivers" while with the Young Charlatans, it was later recorded and released by a group Howard joined soon afterwards, The Boys Next Door.

Young Charlatans recorded the first (and second) version of 'Shivers' as part of their unreleased demos, which were made by Bruce Milne for a future single on his Au Go Go Records label.

His post punk groups included Whirlywirld (1978–80), Orchestra of Skin and Bone (1984–86) and No (1987–89).

The Young Charlatans broke up in May 1978 and Olsen, on lead vocals, synthesiser, clarinet and saxophone, formed Whirlywirld, with Andrew Duffield on synthesiser, John Murphy on drums (ex-the News), Dean Richards on guitar and Simon Smith on synthesiser.

Their debut self-titled three-track extended play was released in June 1979 via Missing Link Records.

Olsen wrote two tracks and co-wrote the third with Murphy.

The group issued a second self-titled EP in February 1980.

The first 500 copies also included a bonus single, "Sextronics", but Whirlywirld disbanded before it appeared.

Olsen and Murphy relocated to the United Kingdom in early 1980 on the recommendation of Iggy Pop.

The Canberra Times' Jonathan Green reported that "The Ig was impressed with the band's first ep when out here last year."

The duo formed the Beast Apparel, which later became Hugo Klang, and released a single, "Grand Life for Fools and Idiots", in 1982.

Olsen returned to Australia in the following year and continued Hugo Klang with Alan Bamford, Tom Hoy and Laughton Ellery, before this group split up in 1983.

In 1984 Olsen on vocals and guitar, Marie Hoy on keyboards and vocals and Murphy as drummer formed "an avant-garde outfit", Orchestra of Skin and Bone.

Marie Hoy had been an instigator of the Melbourne 'little bands' scene, as a member of Too Fat to Fit Through the Door and others.

Other musicians associated with Orchestra of Skin and Bone included David Hoy on cello, Tom Hoy on saxophone, Lochie Kirkwood on vocals and saxophone, Dugald McKenzie on vocals and harmonica, James Rogers on trumpet and Peter Scully on guitar.

They issued a self-titled album in 1986 and disbanded soon afterwards.

Film director Richard Lowenstein asked Olsen to appear in and work as music director for his feature film, Dogs in Space (December 1986).

The following year, Ollie formed No, with Olsen on keyboards, vocals, drum machine and sampler, Marie Hoy on keyboards, vocals, samples alongside Kevin McMahon on bass guitar and Michael Sheridan on guitar in 1987.

He re-recorded material by Whirlywirld including two singles, "Win/Lose" (April 1987) as a solo effort, and "Rooms for the Memory" (February) by the film's star, Michael Hutchence (of INXS).

The film also featured Marie Hoy singing "Shivers".

Olsen joined with Michael Hutchence (of INXS) to form a short-term band, Max Q, which issued an album in 1989.

He co-founded the alternative electronic music record label Psy-Harmonics with Andrew Till in 1993.

In a 2009 interview, following the restoration of the original film for a DVD release, Lowenstein told Trevor Block:

But Whirlywirld were always the ones for me.

I mean, their music is in the movie itself, over the end credits.

And the great thing about Ollie [Olsen], and one of the reasons I asked him to do so much in the movie, is that his songs have always had a feel to them, a kind of mood that fitted in with what we were doing.

In 2014 he formed Taipan Tiger Girls.