File Nozzle under 'cool, little, electronic'

Imagine this: you are at a club in Cleveland. You have come to see a show given by a band you've never heard of, but you showed up tonight because you liked their name and the flier said something about elecronica. Since you are a big fan of electronic music in all its guises, your curiosity is piqued. You aren't quite sure what to expect from this band; "electronica" is a very vague term for an even more elusive type of music.

Three pretty normal looking guys walk on stage. One takes his place behind the turntables, dons a pair of headphones and drops the needle on a beat. The one in the middle is almost hidden by a tower of keyboards and computer equipment, but you can tell he's doing something,  'cause the beat don't sound like it did before. And in a chair over on the left sits a man with a guitar; you can't tell if it's blue or not, but it might as well be because the sounds that come out of it are pure imagination.

The keyboards kick in with a melody and the guitar washes over it with another. The DJ drops in a sample of a saxophone and a girl standing next to you shuts her eyes and nods her head.

So, you think to yourself, this is Nozzle. 

Nozzle it is, and don't ask where they got their name.

And don't ask the three-man band to put a label on their music. DJ Vertigo (OC '94) describes it simply as "Kinda...you know...a cool little electronic band." Matt Weiner (OC '97), who plays keyboards and does all the live processing for Nozzle, describes their sound as "electronic music with wacked out guitar." But guitarist and Conservatory senior Zach Layton refused comment, saying, "That is just an invitation for us to sound pretentious."

Despite musical influences that range from avant-garde composers such as Webern, Stockhausen and Brian Eno, to artists like Massive Attack and Aphex Twin, Nozzle sounds anything but pretentious.

In fact, the multiple layers of sound, the melodies and counter-melodies produced by the guitar and keyboards, combine with the turntables in a way that is different from anything else you will hear in Oberlin or elsewhere. And you don't have to be a composition major - like Layton and Weiner - to enjoy it.

In the past year, Nozzle has opened shows for the band Low and for Spectrum, one of the offshoots of Spaceman 3. But that doesn't put them above playing parties in Oberlin in their spare time. Give these guys a listen. They aren't named Nozzle for nothing.