Kevin Bronson on February 9th, 2009

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Oliver the Penguin is not so much a band, or an album. It’s a persona – a character that sprung from the minds of musician-about-town Tommy Walter and singer-songwriter-composer Rie Sinclair. If the duo has their way, Oliver the Penguin won’t just be an album that they plan to release in March, it will be an animated television show. It’s just that the soundtrack is done ahead of time.

And nifty music it is. “Oliver the Penguin” is nimble electropop that relies on volleys of playful beats from Walter and airy vocals from Sinclair to sketch a leading man that might fascinate kids but also speak to adults. “We have a treatment for him,” Walter says, who acknowledges that another flightless bird, “Bloom County’s” Opus, was part of the inspiration for Oliver. “He’s super-smart, very introverted, with a big imagination, capable of taking something mundane and making it wonderful. … I can just see equations sprouting out of his head.”

• ||| Stream: “Girls & Boys” [audio:http://www.mediafire.com/file/k5tqkdwjnzz/Oliver the Penguin_Girls & Boys.mp3]

Neither Sinclair nor Walter could have foreseen this collaboration sprouting like it did, although it did begin in the TV realm. Besides her solo work (which she releases on her own I Miss You Records), Sinclair composes music for ABC and Disney, her working having appeared on prime-time shows as well daytime fare such as “General Hospital.” She needed a hand with a theme song, contacted Walter and something clicked beyond the initial assignment. Between commercial projects, the pair would “write a song that was more Oliver-sounding, and we’d set it aside,” Sinclair says. “Last October, we decided to sit down and finish the whole thing, like mad scientists.”

Sinclair, originally from St. Paul, Minn., is indeed a scientist’s daughter. “I was really impressed how she put it together so quickly – lyrics, hooks, melody … just like a physicist’s daughter,” says Walter, a Pasadena native who himself “has a lot of pots boiling” – the former Eels bassist is writing new material for his solo project Abandoned Pools, as well as collaborating with Ross Golan in Glacier Hiking. among other endeavors.. “She’s so good at painting pictures.”

The songs are playful but have a mysterious, if not dark, side. “It’s the good side of the force and the bad side of the force,” she says. “As a kid, I had two imaginary friends, and the three of us would make up songs. You put yourself in a scenario and call on your imaginary side.”

Is it that different from being a hired gun? “It’s funny because sometimes in TV songs are tossed aside, but all the composers I know from the shows I have worked on have had their jobs a long time and they do really good work,” Sinclair says. “We write songs that cross platforms, that cross cultures, happy songs, sad songs, all kinds of songs. I’ve just resolved that I’m going to be a chameleon.”

Photo by David LaPorte; Oliver drawn by Lance Troxel