"The music of Tim Olive arises from collaboration with fellow musicians/sound artists, collaboration with physical and temporal setting, and collaboration with those involved in the act of listening. Using simple materials (magnetic pickups, steel strings, tuning forks, metal strips, hand-wound motor mechanisms, magnetic tape, dental floss and analog electronics), Olive's work examines presence and the present, the interplay of the human with material/time/space, and the uniqueness, intensity and unrepeatability that lives in each performing and/or recording situation.

He is interested in music as a social activity, as a way of creating community, a way of countering the forces which lead to an increasing atomization of contemporary life; music as a felt experience rather than as a concept or a theory.

A Canadian residing in Kobe, Japan, Olive has released music on Japanese, European and North American labels, with Jeff Allport, Cristian Alvear, Pascal Battus, Alfredo Costa Monteiro, Samuel Dunscombe, Nick Hoffman, Anne-F Jacques, Jin Sangtae, Jason Kahn, Takahiro Kawaguchi, Francisco Meirino, Katsura Mouri, Takuji Naka, Makoto Oshiro and Ben Owen.

Olive has performed/recorded in Asia, Australia, North America and Europe, with the recording collaborators listed above, as well as with Akiyama Tetuzi, Maria Chavez, Che Chen, Kelly Churko, crys cole, Joe Foster, Haco, Hong Chulki, Bonnie Jones, Richard Kamerman, Kostis Kilymis, Siew-Wai Kok, Madoka Kouno, Tomasz Krakowiak, Fangyi Liu, James Rushford, Carl Stone, Fritz Welch, Nate Wooley, Jared Xu and Yan Jun.

In addition to organizing events in Japan, Olive runs the label 845 Audio."