Ebn Ozn

In 1983 the new wave pair EBN-OZN scored a quirky single called "AEIOU Sometimes Y" that briefly caught attention before the act slipped into anonymity. Ned "EBN" Liben handled synthesizers while Robert "OZN" Rosen played organ and sang, yet the duo refused to stay within any single style, freely mixing synth pop, funk, and salsa with playful abandon. They first came together in New York during the early eighties after an acquaintance of Rosen’s girlfriend introduced the two musicians. Although Liben and Rosen had grown up only blocks apart, their paths had never crossed until that meeting. Both shared a taste for punk rock and hip-hop, and they began frequenting clubs where they soaked up dance sounds arriving from New York, Puerto Rico, and Europe. Their sole album, Feeling Cavalier, appeared on Elektra Records in 1984, and the track "AEIOU Sometimes Y" found steady rotation on modern-rock playlists. Once that release ran its course, the pair never recorded together again. Liben later contributed to sessions with Scritti Politti, while Rosen launched his own house project, DaDa NaDa, on the independent One Voice Records imprint. Eventually Rosen stepped away from music entirely, taking a post as a script analyst for Oscar-winning director Oliver Stone and turning his hand to screenwriting. Liben died of a heart attack in 1998.