Did you know that, within Hipster-Critic circles, there's actually a musical category called "cello rock"?

Perhaps obviously, what happened is that more and more bands started featuring the cello — an instrument Pablo Casals associated with chamber music or symphonies. Truth is, the idea of a cello in rock music is not exactly new. Going back to the 1970s and the first wave of prog, with acts like Electric Light Orchestra and Gentle Giant, the list of instruments deemed "acceptable" in a rock has broadened substantially — and that certainly includes something as atmospherically appealing as the cello and its siblings the violin and the viola.

By now, niche musical forms such as punk, pop, metal and, yes, prog, have all incorporated cello into their formats — just as classical acts like Yo-Yo Ma, the Turtle Island String Quartet and the Kronos String Quartet use their classical instrumentation to experiment with rock and pop music.

In New Haven, an act called Olive Tiger is doing amazing things within the modern music spectrum using the cello textures of vocalist/songwriter/frontwoman Olive — no last name, please. The band plays Thursday in New London's 33 Golden Street.

Their debut album, "Until My Body Breaks," released earlier this year by New London's Telegraph Recordings label, is a triumph of exotic and ambitious sonic atmosphere that transforms Olive's visionary pop songs into something very new and distinct. But Olive's cello lines — which are interwoven and sculpted through clever utilization of a loop pedal — are only part of a dense recipe.

Violinist Jesse Newman adds a further "classical" component, and drummer Dane Scozzari and bassist John "Greeno" Greenawalt provide bottom-end rhythm figures that range from tight-pocket groove to contrapuntal exclamation points. Swirling atop like exotic birds are Olive's haunting vocal melodies, which at times recall Amy Winehouse working in a post-war Eastern European cabaret. Olive also uses the loop pedal to sculpt creative vocal treatments and pretzel-twist harmonies.

"Until My Body Breaks" was beautifully recorded by Eric Dawson Tate at Horseshoe Hill Barn in Harwinton, Conn., and the project was richly and atmospherically produced by Tate and Olive. The band recently completed its first series of live dates outside Connecticut and, in a recent interview, Olive says plans for the future are as optimistic as they are expansive.

"Reaction to 'Until My Body Breaks' has been really positive," she says. "The ultimate level of appreciation would be being able to support myself on my art, right? Our first tour this past fall was incredible, and we plan to tour more next year. The next album is half-written, but I feel my writing style is also evolving and solidifying rapidly, so I want to give the process time to grow and stretch its legs."

Given that the band is so original and, as such, almost instantly identifiable, Olive is amused by the attempts from media and fans to categorize their sound by such phrases as "art rock," "chamber pop," or even "post-millennial prog."

"All of the above," Olive laughs. "Usually, we just say something along the lines of folktronic indie rock, but it could also sort of fit in under art rock, chamber pop, experimental pop, electro-folk-pop ... These days, genre labels are generally insufficient, so I've enjoyed the resulting creativity in the attempt to create new ones."

Olive Tiger didn't exactly set out to break sonic boundaries — it just sort of happened. A native of Oxford and Seymour, she earned a graduate degree in music therapy at Florida State University, then returned to Connecticut and started exploring the open-mic scenes around New Haven. After meeting Newman and then Scozzari, the band formed — Greenawalt joined after the "Until My Body Breaks" sessions — and underwent a stylistic evolution through long jam sessions and experimentation with electronics and technological possibilities.

Olive's songwriting process, though, typically comes out of solo practice sessions. She might, for example, write etudes as a means to refine technique, and if a particular section resonates, she uses that as springboard.

"When I get into a musical meditation and just want to repeat something over and over because it's so beautiful, that's when I know it's something worth using in a song structure," Olive says. "From that point, I have to ask myself what the emotional content of the section is, and whether any lyrical ideas I've been working on might fit."

Olive strongly believes that the compositional process is tied to a bigger-picture construct, so her lyrics, addressing personal relationships and real-world observations, are decidedly not pulled from a rhyming dictionary or after browsing the greeting card aisle at the super market.

"The question to me is whether the lyrical idea fits in with what's going on with my life," she says, "and then what is the universal human experience underlying my personal experience. I think when you can tie your individual experience to the broader concept behind it, I feel supported as an individual human and hopefully simultaneously provide support to others experiencing the same thing."

At the same time, Olive admits the lyric writing process can be much more intimidating than the music.

"It's actually a hair-pulling process for me. I actually have plans to sign up for a poetry class to help create some fluency in that area," she says.

Once a tune is ready, the band fleshes out the arrangements and structures, and the result is a sound and product that's instantly identifiable as Olive Tiger — and made Telegraph Recordings owner Rich Martin want to sign the band.

"Their unique sound and approach was a real draw to working with them," says Martin, who first saw Olive Tiger at a house party in Middletown. "I couldn't stop thinking about the unique combination of instrumentation and use of loops in building the arrangements to those amazing songs."

Olive and Martin share a modern approach to marketing music in the download era — a philosophy that certainly welcomes success and sales as long as the integrity of the artistic process remains paramount.

"I'm not personally interrested in participating in the commercial music market," Olive says. "It's not structured in a way that allows creativity to flourish. Fortunately or unfortunately, since the music industry behemoth is dying and transforming into something new, there are new ways of existing as a musician that were not possible in the past. The DIY scene has been growing and growing — so direct participation with and support of musicians you love is more important than ever."