From a musicians family, Niels Van Hoorn began his career in 1961, at the age of 10 with classical flute lessons. Before long, he was tagging along with friends and hanging around with blues and R&B bands, soon becoming the soloist in a youth orchestra.

--- 1960's ---

He bought his first saxophone in 1966 from a pawn shop in Antwerpen, and taught himself to play by listening to blues and other records featuring horn players. He joined his first band, Dreaming Mary, in 1967.

Through a variety of iterations, the band became Plastic Feet, and became rather famous, playing for 20,000 people at the Ice Stadium of Dusselldorf along with Traffic, Ammon Duul, and Ginger Baker's Air Force. Inspired by bands like Jethro Tull and Traffic, Niels began to play flute again, and eventually found himself in a band called Liberty where he released his first hit single with EMI called "Hey Man".

--- 1970's ---

Around 1973, Niels met Hans Meyer, who introduced him to electronic music and inspired him to complete a degree in Electronic Music at the Institute for Sonologie in Utrecht. Playing flute, saxophone, and now with his first synthesizer, the infamous EMS VCS 3, Niels joined a band called Cappella, who later became a famous theater rock band called Fruit. After that time, he started the Klaverland Recording Studios with a Sonologie colleague, Peter Veenman. Together they made film music for Frans Swartjes and George Schouten, and other commercial recordings.

Niels also became a member of the S.E.M. Ensemble on the Castle Hof ter Beke in Wilrijk in Belgium, a group for modern (at the time) electronic and experimental musicians, performing shows for the National radio of Belgium.

--- 1980's ---

For 10 years, Niels played in an anarchist street orchestra called Horen en Zien - using music to protest atomic power plants and police brutality. During this time, he met Bob Pistoor, who ended up becoming his best friend, musically and personally. Together they started the project Horizon, a totally improvised pop music band.

In 1982, he met Clemens van de Ven, singer and piano player with a voice like Tom Waits. They started playing together just for fun, but quickly found themselves being asked to play a lot of shows. With increasing popularity, they played together as Narrow Escape until 1987. During this time they recorded and released one live album and one studio recording called "Delivery".

Hans Meyer introduced Niels to the Legendary Pink Dots who then used the Klaverland Studios to record one of their seminal works: Any Day Now. Niels was asked to join the Legendary Pink Dots as a temporary replacement for a short four-day tour. Two days into the tour, he was asked to accompany the band on their first US tour in 1989, and Niels has been with the band ever since, completing 11 US tours and over 30 European tours.

--- 1990's ---

In 1998, Niels performed with Voltage, an improvised drum and bass project, who won a pop-music prize in Holland (Grote Prijs van Nederlands). In the same period, he did Super Sessions with Kaz Lux and other famous musicians, playing many music festivals in Holland.

--- 2000's ---

In 2000, he joined the Tear Garden and recorded several commercially successful albums. While recording with Tear Garden, Niels met Mark Spybey of Download, Zoviet France, and Dead Voices On Air. Mark lived at Klaverland for about half a year, and during that time, they created several recordings together, most notably the albums "The Happy Submarines" and "De Klaverland Klompen Voetbal Club". Both albums contain crazy fantasy stories about the Independent State of Klaverland

With help and encouragement from Ryan Moore, the drummer for Legendary Pink Dots, Niels recorded his first solo album "Colours" in 2002.

In 2002, he did several recordings with Lydia Lunch and Anubian Lights. Niels was approached by Richard van Kruysdijk in 2004, to ask permission to remix a song from Colours for his label, Music for Speakers. Loving what Richard produced, they subsequently began recording together, forming Strange Attractor. Since their formation they have recorded 3 full-length albums and one EP, collaborating with David J, Chris Christopherson, Graham Lewis, Richard Sinclair, Winston Tong, Edward KaSpel, Jarboe, and Blaine Reininger.

In 2009, Niels recorded with an improv band called Szense. Following this (in 2010) he recorded the album "Valentine Days" with Grey Lagoon in Rome, Italy. While in Rome, the iceland volcano prevented him from traveling home, and "Stuck In Rome" was born.

Niels is currently working on finishing the Klaverland studio while recording with a number of musicians. .