Ollie Olsen

Born Melbourne, Australia 1958. Ollie Olsen has produced much innovative music in Australia. Ollie studied electronic music mid-70s under Felix Werder, a German composer living in Australia who had studied under Karlheinz Stockhausen. In the late '70s Ollie formed one of the first electronic bands, Whirlywirld, releasing a number of recordings on Missing Link Records. During the next ten years Ollie formed experimental outfits Hugo Klang and Orchestra of Skin and Bone, then the hard-core industrial techno band, NO. In the 1980s Ollie was invited to be the music producer for the movie of the same-titled compilation album "Dogs In Space (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)". He provided much of the soundtrack himself, including writing the hit song Rooms For The Memory sung by INXS front man, and the movie's star, Michael Hutchence. After a brief collaboration with U2 on the single New York, New York by Ecco Homo, Ollie was approached by Michael Hutchence to produce an album with him. The result was Max Q. Ollie also worked at this time with American producer Todd Terry and UK producer/DJ Paul Oakenfold. From the success of Max Q came a major record company deal and Ollie formed the band Third Eye. The group made one album before Ollie decided to concentrate on instrumental electronic music. Thus the label Psy-Harmonics was born, with Third Eye's LP Ancient Future as the first release. Ollie had a role as A&R for the Psy-Harmonics label, also producing a great deal of work for Psy-Harmonics. He has collaborated with other musicians on such projects as The Visitors, Psyko Disko, Fluro Conspiracy, Higher Spin States, Assasin Device, Shaolin Wooden Men, and many others. On Ollie's solo album, Emptiness, and more recently in new material released in 2020, Ollie returns to his roots in avant-garde / experimental composition. Besides work in Psy-Harmonics, Ollie also lectures on electronic music and continues to compose for film and television. Film and television credits include 1998 feature film "Head On" from director Anna Kokkinos (which earned him an AFI nomination), "RAW FM" and "Eugenie Sandler" for ABC TV. He collaborated on interactive projects with Troy Innocent and worked on the electronic component of Australian composer Richard Mills (2)'s opera, "Batavia". Ollie can be seen in live experimental music performances and he performed occasionally with the Australian Art Orchestra. In 2002, he collaborated on a major orchestral project with AAO Director Paul Grabowsky. In 2020 Olsen was diagnosed with multiple system atrophy (MSA) which was announced in June 2023.