scott hardkiss is one of electronic dance music's most innovative & enigmatic DJ/producer/artists. he's created his own bizarre, funky, surreal, and uplifting fusion of psychedelic house, breakbeats, funk, rock, hip-hop, techno, disco, soul, jazz, dub, ambient, blues, latin, classical, go-go & surf music to name just a few. scott was born in the bronx, ny and grew up between nyc, dc, & philadelphia. In the early 80s, at the age of 10, he fell in love with old-school hip-hop's "anything-goes" sound & brilliant graffitti, got his first set of turntables & taught himself to dj, and began sonic, visual, & psychological experimentation & vandalism. being further influenced in dance clubs where electronic music was blended together happily with rock, pop, & new-wave, he went on to study literature & art at oxford university, living in the uk during the initial explosion of the rave & indie-dance scenes and travelling to the spanish islands to take in the diverse balearic sound. all of these experiences led him to found hardkiss as a creative outlet for his own personal style of music & art through djing, production, design & events. with his vision thus born he set off to open heads & hearts and make booties shake by organizing & djing at some of the first raves & electronic-music multi-media dance events, beginning on the east coast and working his way out west to san francisco.
he soon inspired a motley crew of weirdo followers to join him in his mission and together with his newly-adopted "brothers" robbie & gavin started the seminal record label, "hardkiss music" in 1991. using the name "god within" for his own original solo productions, scott spear-headed a movement towards warm, colorful, eclectic, and trippy electro-funk in an ultra-conservative cold, hard, & fast 4/4 black-and-white age and thus became one of the true innovators of the electronic dance-music movement of the 90's and a key pioneer of the "west-coast" & "san francisco" sound. his ground-breaking records (including "raincry," "the phoenix,", "daylight", "acid funk", & "infinitely gentle blows") & musical style were, for some reason, embraced by djs, producers, & music-lovers worldwide. in 1995 all of the label's vinyl single releases were compiled in the classic allbum "delusions of grandeur," which he named after a series of multi-media events he produced combining music, art & film. he wrote his label's procovative dadaist press releases, waged absurdist promotional campaigns, and lovingly designed the surreal, color-drenched artwork & hand-scrawled graffiti logos for the records & cds.
as a club dj, scott became one of the first americans of his generation to tour coast-to-coast and beyond, being touted as one of dj magazine's "top 50 djs in the world" and making journeys to spread his sound to exotic international locales. he's performed at legendary clubs & events such as the loft, twilo, the roxy, crobar, spundae, buzz, giant, motor, fabric, heavenly social, big beat boutique, tribal gathering, bedrock, red rocks, ministry of sound, back-to-basics, sabresonic, dorian gray, the drum club and countless others. he always strived to push the dj envelope and risked his "career" by refusing to stick to simply one sound or style, constantly surprising with eclectic, bold selections, mashing & re-editing both classic & obscure rock, pop, disco & funk songs for a full decade before this became fashinonable, creating his own exclusive "specials", remixes (like his infamous unreleased version of elton john's "rocketman") for use only in his sets, and incorporating live musicians and vocalists into his performances.
in 2001, after a decade in california and at the peak of his popularity in the clubs, he suddenly & inexplicably withdrew himself from the international dj circuit, deleted his entire catalog of recordings, returned to nyc and adopted a semi-reclusive lifestyle of self-imposed exile. rumors of his death & institutionalization began to circulate. but he quietly began to shift his focus towards composing score for film & tv, as well as song-writing, production, arranging, and working more extensively with live vocalists & musicians. his music has since been featured in major motion pictures including "kiss kiss bang bang", richard linklater's "bad news bears", spike lee's "he got game" & "187" starring samuel l. jackson. he recently composed the score for several acclaimed short films in the reelmoments series: "room 10," directed by jennifer aniston and starring robin wright penn & kris kristofferson, "orchids," directed by bryce dallas howard and starring alfred molina, and "cutlass," directed by kate hudson and starring dakota fanning, virginia madsen & kurt russell. his music has been much in demand in tv, being used in programs, themes and promos for mtv, hbo, vh1, comedy central & direct tv, and to make matters even worse he's also become one of the advertising world's most sought-after composers, specializing in cutting-edge modern music for major international ad campaigns including motorola, american express, levi's, sprite, hennessey, phat farm and dasani.
he's also executed a diverse array of production & remixes for and with a wide range of other artists of many different genres & styles. the hardkiss mixes of elton john and republica hit the pop charts, and he's produced songs with artists including p-funk legend george clinton, grandmaster flash's melle mel, and members of the glide memorial church gospel choir and the new york philharmonic. scott's remix of the flaming lips' "do you realize???" was featured on the lips' release "fight test," which was nominated for the grammy for best alternative album, and he collaborated with dr. octagon's kool keith on a psychedelic hip-hop track for mtv's "amp 2." he created a symphonic remix of the polyphonic spree that featured an orchestra of over 100 musicians and his club mix of "cherry," the single for lisa shaw's debut album, was released by naked music. and most recently scott crafted a lovely spaced-out remix of dean & britta's song "singer sing" for the duo's fantastic remix album "variations."
now in 2008, scott is currently completing his own highly-anticipated debut full-length album "technicolor dreamer" for releaseon his own new label god within. in this marathon retro-futuristic party jam he's writing, producing, arranging & performing all songs himself, along with beautiful contributions from artists including lisa shaw, britta phillips, stevvi alexander, bobby harden, j bowman, greg skaff, steven bernstein, tabitha fair, ernest carter and a full-spectrum band of amazing live musicians to inject even more organic funk & soul to his next-school electronic sounds. and it's rumored a return to touring and full physical & digital re-issue of all of his long-out-of-print & highly-collectible recordings will follow. it's all part of scott hardkiss' kaleidoscopic sonic vision, fusing the futuristic with the traditional, the electronic with the acoustic, the spiritual with the absurd, and body-moving rhythms with heart-and-soul-moving melodies, vocals & songs.
he rides his beloved subway everyday in headphones, shades and anonymity.
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