7 From Life ‎– "Tantra Vendetta" (Inner-X-Musick ‎– XXX 40) 1985

"Nostalgia is an act of Cowardice", says Lawrence Van Horn on the insert for this score for a Ballet about the Chinese invasion of Tibet. Whether its pro or anti-Tibet is anyone's guess. I may run a small opinion poll,....For the Occupation; Against the Occupation; Occupation,what Occupation?;or Don't care!,are your choices......I rather think 'Occupation,what Occupation?, would win comfortably, with 'Don't Care!' clear in second place.

Whenever a left field underground artist starts writing music for a Modern Ballet, it's a sign that he's finished as a creative force.

As Nostalgia is now a form of Cowardice,according to the philosopher that is L. Van Horn, then this blog is full of Cowards,and I don't like being called a Coward ,mainly becuse I am a Coward;and let's face it, this Blog overfloweth with Nostalgia......otherwise why the hell would we be listening to a bunch of 35 year old cassettes by Lawrence Van 'me?A Coward, Naaah' Horn? Nostagia for the invasion and occupation of Tibet doesn't seem to bother him one bit.

The music itself is like walking through a fog of tear gas during a slow motion riot....which in itself is a kind of Modern Ballet.Actually its a Ballet i'd probably go and see,as long as it's coreographed by actual rioters.It can start off with a real innocent man being shot in the back by some dumb Cops,then take it from there until the theatre is in flames.

Tracklist:

Act One
A1 Tonal Reflection #1 : An Ocean Of Stars 15:00
A2 Spellbondage 6:02
A3 Panic In A State Of Grace 2:43
A4 A Face Full Of Pie-In-The-Sky 5:33

Act Two
B1 Tonal Reflection #2 : Horizans In Flames 21:56
B2 Llaman Lamentation 5:50
B3 Guerrilla Mantra 3:53

DOWNLOAD tantrically HERE!

7 From Life ‎– "Coral Assault" (Inner-X-Musick ‎– XXX-21) 1985

 
In a time when Coral is under assault from all angles due to the stupidity of the human race, it seems Lawrence Van Horn, of 7 From Life, wanted to draw this idiotic anti-life violence to our notice thirty years before it was even mentioned? Well maybe not,maybe he just wanted to creep us out, and make doomy music? It does have a tune about the bombing of Dresden on it,of which my father was a very rare witness.He was on a forced death march from poland back to the fatherland,when they rested on a hill over looking Dresden on the evening the British were bombing it flat.I could add the relevant section from his memoirs,but it would take over the post, and poor old Lawrence would feel ignored.....just like he must have been by all of woman kind......(you can download the entire memoir HERE if you're so inclined. He described it as being a "lovely display of colour's like a firework display";not a mention of the innocent civilian life being lost in the ensuing firestorm. That's what he was like,stoic and emotionless,which were the talents that got him through the whole of the war.

Oh Yeah, the tape!?
I dunno about you's but by 1985 I'd had enough of all this industrial and Punk shit,and had adopted an ironic Miami Vice look,and was starting to get into easy listening. But in america, they were only just getting into this Industrial fad,and duly claimed ownership,just like they did ten years after Punk Rock had died. Richard Hells' haircut wasn't enough evidence,especially when confronted with a picture of Bowie on the cover of Space Oddity's re-released version in 1972;when RichardMeyers was still in reformed school with Verlaine,who also didn't invent symbolist poetry,and also wasn't in Quicksilver Messenger Service,which was basically Television in bad clothes. The USA did in fact invent Rock'n'Roll,but why aren't they satisfied with that?
We may have all been bored with Industrial by 1985, but 35 years later we can now appreciate the late-comers contribution ,and it seems to have come from so far back that it all sounds as thought they had invented this pop-fad after all; and in the future, with all this revisionism going around, who knows, but maybe "7 After Life" did invent it all after all?...maybe he even invented Rock'n'Roll..I dunno anymore, or, care!?

Tracklist:

A1 Tombs Of Maya 5:41
A2 Shroud Of White Darkness 7:21
A3 Fome And Tide 4:13
A4 Hash Of Masks 6:07
A5 Cobra Dance 1:50
A6 Dresden 1945 4:05
A7 Insolation 2:15
B1 Invocation 3:07
B2 Stigma Machine 5:14
B3 Beyond Worms 4:21
B4 Chello Tango 2:18
B5 Nous Sommes Tous Sauvages 2:15
B6 Light Vector 4:31
B7 Mental Anguish Psyhic Reflex 5:31
B8 Withdrawl 3:07
B9 End 0:16

DOWNLOAD the gunfight at the not ok coral HERE!

7 From Life ‎– "Sting Of The Honey Spider" (Inner-X-Musick ‎– XXX 27) 1985

 He had the name of a Porn Star, and the looks of a toilet cleaner, but Lawrence Van Horn's recorded output is probably the best stuff on the Inner-X-Musick label.Another from the Nurse With Wound sonic collage school,who had in turn nicked it from former 'Homosexual' Jim Whelton,and his various terminally obscure cassette releases; the most well-known being L.Voag. It turns out that NWW had appropriated virtually everything to make their first album,and i'm sure Larry uses the same time-trusted method with his sound sources.

To blot his copybook a tad, Van Horn was in several line-ups of the not-so-good,and very dated sounding, Sleepchamber,but don't let that put you off.

Tracklist:

A1 The Cliffs Of Oblivion 5:52
A2 Lagoon Noir 2:44
A3 Necklace Of Tears 8:09
A4 Phantom Pain 3:30
A5 Anathematical Arousal 2:26
A6 The Gathering Thorns 4:43
A7 Rain Of Ashes 2:23
B1 Resisting The Limit 3:32
B2 Fruits Of Abuse 4:21
B3 A World Of Pure Salt 3:12
B4 Bitter Rapture 5:27
B5 Plate Tectonics 4:29
B6 Ascendancy In Tatters 3:16
B7 Intermezzo 2:13
B8 Lying In Wait 4:33

DOWNLOAD some sweet arachnophonics HERE!

7 From Life ‎– "Souls Of Dead Sharks" (Inner-X-Musick ‎– XXX-13) 1984

7 From Life was a gruesome looking charaster called Lawrence Van Horn, and despite the name, he wasn't an alter ego of John Zewizz, even though Zewizz seemed to be on the horn most of the time. There's a refreshing lack of pervy sexual references from van Horn,although he is one of those people who actually look like the music they make.He has that Harvey Wankstain bubblegum rolled in cat hair look that most perverts seem to  enjoy.Imagine him and Zewizz on a night out? They'd empty any bar of women within half an hour.Then they could play one of their tapes and empty the same bar of the remaining males within another five minutes.

Lawrence Van Horn, the Harvey Wankstain of Industrial Musick

You get the eerie feeling that if Larry didn't make music like this he'd be one of those characters with a hidden apartment underneath his house, full of kidnapped women and several of his malnourished offspring chained together.

The music is wonderfully creepy,more along the lines of Musique Concréte rather than classic Old Skool Industrial. This could pass for avant-garde if only Larry had gone to a fancy Conservatoire de Musique in Vienna;but I doubt they'd even let him out of the country never mind into another.Especially if his passport photo looks like the picture above.Ugh Shudder!

Tracklist:

A1 Chalk Streetcars Vicious As Insomnia 8:51
A2 Nemesis 8:45
A3 Galloping Lampshades 6:43
A4 Sahara Isolation Tank 5:53
B1 Deutsches Handlung 3:44
B2 Dominion As Heritage 5:02
B3 Ju-Ju Pig Sacrifice For Conjuration Of Robots 4:32
B4 Subdued By Shadows 9:58
B5 Hysteria In The Snow 3:03

DOWNLOAD and converse with some dead sharks HERE!