Amy Oelsner’s homemade pop songs sparkle with these eternal truths: that story-telling is part of being alive, and excavating the past is part of growth. Oelsner, who records as Amy O, is a lifer of the indie-pop underground. Her latest, Shell, brims with poetic granular details of everyday life; it’s her third studio album, and tenth including her many years of home recordings. Oelsner’s sound has expanded since she first started recording solo in 2004; it now features her husband Justin Vollmar on bass/backing vocals and brother-in-law Nathan Vollmar on drums, but the driving force remains Oelsner and her songs. That's evidenced on her album Elastic (released August 2017 via Winspear Records), where she waxes poetic on pain and loss while still managing to sound upbeat. That word, elastic, similarly describes the sound Amy O makes with her band: tightly coiled indie-pop music indebted to Sleater-Kinney and the Roches, defined by unruly guitars, excitable vocals, and supremely hyperactive hooks. Oelsner’s music snaps and pops exuberantly, its joy infectious and its craft undeniable. 

Following Elastic, Shell similarly stretches with melodies upon melodies. But here there is greater use of space, pace, and patience. Perfectly minimal riffs slowly build, ebb, erupt and recoil; guitars and keys layer and swell; intricate drums and pristine criss-crossing vocal melodies. On Shell, Oelsner deals in the outer and inner boundaries of self. She grapples with mortality, physical transiency and vulnerability, the concept of home.

Growing up in Fayetteville, Arkansas, she taught herself to play guitar and write songs, eventually recording a series of lo-fi albums as she moved around the country for college and work. She released them independently, with little regard for sales or promotions. The endeavor was more about her own experience: the thrill and the discipline of making art. “Songwriting became a way for me to process things and make sense of my life. I got hooked on it emotionally.”

She didn’t realize it at the time, but it was a good grounding for her career as well as her craft. In the mid 2010s, she moved to Bloomington, Indiana to work at Rhino’s Youth Center, which offered after-school programs to teenagers. In addition to acting as Assistant Director, Amy O led the Zine Writing Program, which encouraged adolescents to share their own stories and engage with the public in creative ways. More recently, Oelsner has dug even deeper into her work as an educator and arts organizer. She’s been teaching songwriting at Ivy Tech Community College and is the Founder/Director of Girls Rock Bloomington, a music camp for girls, trans and non-binary youth that teaches positive self-esteem and self-expression through music education and mentorship. For Oelsner, music is a way of connecting with herself, her personal history and her community. The positive impact that creative expression has had on her life has inspired her to empower others, particularly those who have been marginalized, in finding and sharing their unique voice with the world.

Booking Inquiries: amy.oelsner@gmail.com 

For more information or to buy Amy’s albums, visit her label Winspear.