Though they never achieved the massive status of their peers, Dallas, Texas band Lesson Seven carved out a considerable following with their unique style of industrial dance rock. The band was fronted by Scott Crow, and he is the driving force behind the upcoming compilation Continuum of Time (due out December 16th – PRE-ORDER), which compiles Lesson Seven’s best-known tracks, covers, demos and new songs and guest vocals from Psyche.
The majority of the songs were originally recorded by Crow between 1988-1992 and feature strategic samples, driving synthesizers and heavy bass. Crow’s lyrics are introspective, existential and poetic, contemplating barbed wire, desolate strip malls…the landscape apocalyptic America. Their original releases of this music earned Lesson Seven spots touring with Nine Inch Nails (Hate 1990) and Skinny Puppy (VIVI sect IV 1988) as well as opening for every major industrial and post-punk band including Ministry, Meat Beat Manifesto, Clan of Xymox, Consolidated, Swans, Front Line Assembly, Legendary Pink Dots, Revolting Cocks, Laibach, Severed Heads, Die Warzau, Pigface, A Split Second and Weathermen.
2019 saw new 30th anniversary remixes of their international underground club hit ‘Radiation’ (Oak Lawn Records1989), new cover songs and the launching of the record label/media hub eMERGENCY heARTS in Austin Texas. As 2020 approached, crow relaunched Lesson Seven, working with various producers including Mark Pistel (Meat Beat Manifesto, Hercules & Love Affair, Consolidated), while 2021 and 2022 saw new songs and and remixes culminating in the releases of Continuum of Time to be followed by 2 remix albums Memories of the Future: Remixes//RED (Jan 2023) and Memories of the Future: Remixes//BLACK (March 2023)
Today Glide is offering an exclusive premiere of Continuum of Time. Considering that many of these songs are around thirty years old, it’s impressive how ahead of his time Crow was in his vision. The style of music best described as dark wave combines synthy 80s dance, brooding and atmospheric electronics, and the kind of intense rock sound that would become most notably associated with acts like Nine Inch Nails and Ministry. The remixes inject the music with a sense of freshness and youthful vibrance that give it a renewed relevance, and you can picture this still pulling people to the dance floor today.
Listen to the album and read our quick interview with Scott Crow below…
What your thoughts are looking back on this music?
“I’ve come to realize even though we we were Texas musical outsiders -even within industrial and electronic subcultures -we created some engaging, poetic and highly political music for its time. An assessment that took me decades to realize as later became an author and public speaker.
I also realized, as a band, Lesson Seven burned bright and flickered out quickly in the grinding music industry that can eat up and spit out young bands living on unrealistic dreams.
What was most exciting/interesting about this project back in the day?
“What made doing music interesting for me was the crossover of political messaging and deeply personal art that might motivate people to be inspired to make better worlds for us all. As a budding anarchist the collaborative and open nature of working with people towards common goals (whether it was events, or creating art) was incredibly rewarding to a redneck from Texas who didn’t grow up like that.
Your thoughts/motivations about having the tracks remixed.
“I truly love the open-ended process of giving an artist musical parts as source material and encouraging them do ANYTHING they want to with it. The open and interpretative nature of letting artists re-vision each other’s work and the re-contextualization of art in general, whether its visual or musical has been something I have been part of since the early days of 80s hiphop.
Its something we do at the eMERGENCY heARTS with all our artists; re- re-imagining all the wonderful music in our post-modern cut-up media society. I have always been drawn to artists who do that in their work.
Its also been a really great blast to reach back to old friends like Mark Pistel (Consolidated), and musical legends I’ve always admired like Adrian Sherwood and Jack Dangers (Meat Beat Manifesto), as well as the new innovative or interesting artists like SINE or AwareNess to connect and re-interpret tracks that are over 28 years old.
