Ollie Olsen, influential Australian post-punk and digital musician, dies aged 66

Ollie Olsen, a big determine in Australia’s post-punk scene and a pioneer in experimental digital music, has died aged 66.

Olsen “died peacefully in his sleep” whereas beneath care at Royal Melbourne Hospital “along with his spouse Jayne at his aspect”, in accordance with assertion shared on the artist’s social media accounts.

A multi-instrumentalist, composer, and sound designer, Olsen was a celebrated determine within the Australian underground music scene.

Thought to be a trailblazer, he was the artistic pressure of ’70s post-punk bands The Younger Charlatans and Whirlywirld, and numerable bands and tasks thereafter, together with Orchestra of Pores and skin and Bone, NO, Third Eye, Hugo Klang, Taipan Tiger Women, and Max Q, alongside INXS singer Michael Hutchence.

Olsen additionally wrote ‘Rooms For The Reminiscence’, a uncommon Hutchence solo single, that grew to become an Australian High 10 hit in 1987.

“I’ve had a really unusual musical trajectory,” Olsen advised Double J in 2021.

“I’ve labored on operas, I’ve labored with orchestras, I’ve carried out so many issues that you simply would not think about I may have carried out. However I simply do no matter turns up … I will have a go at it.

Olsen is ready to be inducted into Music Victoria’s Corridor of Fame subsequent week, and the information got here at a time when household, pals, and followers have been rallying behind him to make a restoration after his well being had “considerably declined.”

Final week, a marketing campaign by Australian music charity Support Act sought to raise $35,000 to “assist cowl the medical bills” for Olsen’s full-time hospital care.

“Thanks to your help through the years, in case you want to assist Jayne with funeral prices, you could achieve this through Ollie’s final fundraiser through Help Act,” the assertion from Olsen’s household reads.

Olsen was on the vanguard of punk within the late ’70s, first with the short-lived group Younger Charlatans (alongside The Boys Subsequent Door/Birthday Celebration guitarist Rowland Howard), after which along with his post-punk outfit Whirlywirld.

Co-founded with drummer John Murphy, Whirlywirld noticed Olsen slowly abandon guitar in favour of trailblazing synthesisers, incorporating a line-up that includes future Fashions keyboardist Andrew Duffield and Simon Smith.

Olsen went on to kind a handful of influential teams all through the Eighties, together with Hugo Klang, Orchestra of Pores and skin and Bone, and NO.

On the shut of the last decade, he joined with INXS frontman Michael Hutchence to kind Max Q, a short-lived challenge that adopted on from the pair assembly and dealing on the cult 1986 Australian movie Canine In House.

Max Q launched a self-titled album in 1989, which achieved Gold gross sales standing because of minor hits ‘Method of the World’ and ‘Typically’.

“I miss Michael on daily basis, the time I spent with him was superb,” Olsen mentioned following Hutchence’s dying by suicide in 1997.

“We each spoke about making new music collectively simply earlier than he handed away. He was a really soulful particular person with an excessive amount of ardour and humour.”

Within the Nineties, Olsen turned his consideration to trance and dance music, co-founding the digital document label Psy-Harmonics in 1993.

He was additionally an early adopter of the web, serving to run Psychic Concord, a membership night time hosted at Carlton venue Dream (now referred to as Phantasm) that was frequented by Julian Asange.

All through the ’90s, Olsen launched music beneath the aliases Third Eye, Primitive Ghost, and Ecco Homo.

Fashioned in 1990 with vocalist Troy Davies, Ecco Homo solely launched two singles however famously enlisted U2 frontman Bono and guitarist The Edge for his or her obscure dance monitor ‘New York, New York’.

Olsen additionally labored in sound design, composed scores for movie and tv, and even lectured and taught digital music at numerous universities.

In 2014, he fashioned the experimental drone band Taipan Tiger Women.

In 2020, Olsen was identified with a number of system atrophy (MSA) – a uncommon neurological dysfunction that causes sure areas of the mind to deteriorate alongside advanced bodily signs.

In recent times, the musician’s well being struggles included heart-related points and dysphagia, a situation that prohibits swallowing, ensuing within the want for full-time hospital care.

Final 12 months, Magic Dust frontwoman Adalita teamed with Andrew Duffield and Mick Harvey for a reworked model of ‘Rooms For The Reminiscence’ to lift funds for Olsen.

Following his dying, Olsen is to be inducted into Music Victoria’s Corridor of Fame throughout the annual music awards’ ceremony on Thursday, October 24.

Music Victoria CEO Simone Schinkel mentioned Olsen was “simply the folks’s selection” for a Corridor of Fame induction.

“Music Victoria has been overwhelmed with requires his induction courting again a few years.

“He’s a real artist and visionary in each sense of the phrase, persistently forging his personal path, delivering groundbreaking sounds with every new decade, influencing generations of musicians, and we’re proud to rejoice his enduring legacy.”