Scott Hardkiss Is A Technicolor Dreamer

Electronica pioneer Scott Hardkiss has been around a long time. Getting his start way back in the early 90's, Hardkiss has been spinning records longer than most current electronic artists have been alive. It's a scary proposition to think this guy has had his finger on the pulse of the dance music community for so long and is responsible for making some of the biggest parties on the east and west coast happen. Knowing this guy's history and how on it he is, it makes his third album and first artist album Technicolor Dreamer a bit of a shock to system.

Rather than being just another CD of banger after banger or hair raising trance anthems mixed into ecstasy Technicolor Dreamer, instead breaks out instruments gets is in touch with it's inner Prince. Quiite simply, Technicolor Dreamer, wants to be a funk record that adds a bit of a squibbly squabble of electronica in it just to keep things modern. Whether or not Scott Hardkiss is successful at doing this is open to debate. While you have to applaud him for the effort, the problem is that so much of this record just sounds flat out cliche. Whether or not Technicolor Dreameris trying to be kitschy in a Ursula 1000 kind of way is uncertain, but what is certain is that so much of this record sounds stuck in the 90's. It's so rooted in that decade, it's as if Dee-Lite left Hardkiss some long lost b-sides and told him to have fun with them and he tried his darnedest to make something relevant out of them.

While quite a bit of this record sounds like it was left over from the turn of the century there are a few bright moments. "Hey Deejay," is a sugary summer pop delight that sounds like it was written by Fatboy Slim while "Come On Come On," is a chilled out kick off to the album that hints at the possibilities of what could have been. Technicolor Dreamerisn't a bad album, it just seems really, really out of date and that's ashame for someone who is usually so on the pulse of things. While so much of the world is currently hooked on Italo, disco, and electro Technicolor Dreamermakes it seem as though Hardkiss hasn't bought a record since 1994; that's ashame, because I had high hopes for this record. I was really expecting something unbelievable, but instead I feel a bit let down by all this retro-pseudo funky-kitschiness.

If you're into early dance music and Stateside DJ's you'll probably find this record highly entertaining, but anyone who downloads 345 bloghouse remixes a day will find this album a bit too retro and too cheesy for it's own good. How depressing.