Bulgarian Tabacco / Scotty Hard
Label : WordSound – WSLP014
Format : 2 x Vinyl, LP, Compilation
Country : US
Release : 1997
In the summer of 1988, Scotty Hard, a native of Vancouver, BC, Canada, heard the first rebellious wails of saxophone on P.E.'s "Show 'em Whatcha Got," permanently altering his destiny. After a 10 year engagement with the punk and alternative scene in Vancouver, Scotty packed his bags and moved to New York City determined to participate in its hip hop revolution.
His initiation into the burgeoning New York hip hop scene began at the legendary Chung King House of Metal and famed Calliope Studios, two of Manhattan's premier hip-hop sound factories. It was at Calliope in 1989 that Scotty settled for 3 to 4 years, working with such artists as Prince Paul, De La Soul, the Jungle Brothers, Ultramagnetic MC's, Jazzy Jay, DJ Mark the 45 King, Stetsasonic, Brand Nubian, Black Sheep, Louie Vega, Fat Joe, Stereo MC's, PM Dawn, Major Force Posse, and The Lifer's Group.
In 1990, during a session he was doing with Q-Tip, Scotty met Jason Furlow and Sebastian Laws, who were just then launching the group New Kingdom. Scotty produced their first demo and their two critically-acclaimed albums for Gee Street Records and played electric guitar in their incendiary live shows.
Scotty's affiliation with WordSound came through Kevin Martin, a British journalist/producer, and mutual friend of Skiz Fernando. After contributing fat performances to Crooklyn Dub, Volumes 2 &3 both Subterranean Hitz compilations, and projects by Slotek and Dubadelic, Scotty made his debut solo appearance on The Return of Kill Dog E (WSCD034).
Despite Scotty's emersion in hip hop during this period, he was always doing music that spanned genres, particularly downtown experimental Jazz with such artists as Sex Mob, MMW, Vijay Iyer, DJ Logic and many others. In 2002 he was asked by the Brazilian band Nação Zumbi to come to Brazil and work on their first major record after the tragic death of their inspirational leader, Chico Science. This record became the eponymously titled record that reestablished them as the premier exponent of "mange beat" music, which emanated from the Northeast of Brazil, and cemented Scotty's reputation in Brazil. This began a string of recordings and interacting with the very vital music community in Brazil that included not only Nação, who he made another record with (2006's "Futura") and continues to work with, as well as Mamelo Sound Sound System, Céu, "Plus 2" (Moreno Veloso, Domenico Lanciotti, and Kassin), Hurtmold, Cordel Encantado de Fogo, Uniao Black, Curumin, Sombra, Materia Prima and many others. This Brazilian association became something very important to him and continues to loom large in his oeuvre to this day.
After producing Mike Ladd's "Nostalgilator" (K7), Mike asked Scotty to lend a hand on some mixes for "Negrophilia" (Thirsty Ear), his contribution to the Thirsty Ear Blue Series, which paired avant-garde jazz musicians with forward thinking hip hop producer/beat makers. Upon hearing what Mike had done (along with contemporaries like El-P, Anti-Pop Consortium and goodandevil), he decided he might as well weigh in on this conversation, as that had been territory he had been staking out for over a decade. Building on his work producing downtown jazz rule breakers Sex Mob, Medeski, Martin and Wood, Melvin Gibbs and DJ Logic, Scotty released his second solo album, "Radical Reconstructive Surgery" (Thirsty Ear). A blend of free improvising and heavy beats, this record consolidated and advanced his take on the Blue Series collaboration with John Medeski, Matthew Shipp, William Parker, Nasheet Waits, DJ Olive and Mauricio Takara. Abstract and bangin' at once, it's a stark, keyboard driven sonic stew drivin by a nonmetronic, funky metric line . Scotty did a few live dates after this release, in Brazil with his frequent collaborator Sebash and Mauricio Takara, and in Toronto and NYC.
In February of 2008, Scotty was leaving his studio late at night in a car service and was involved in a life changing car accident which left him paralyzed from the shoulders down. He was in the hospital for over six months, doing rehab, both Physical and Occupational therapy, and was released from the second facility in September of 2008. And it was only 2 months after this that he was mixing at The Brooklyn Academy of Music Opera House for some of his dear friends from Brazil doing the Red Hot and Rio shows with such Brazilian icons as João Parahyba, Bebel Gilberto, Céu, Moreno Veloso under the direction of old friend Kassin and Mario Caldato.
During Scotty's recovery in the hospitals, his partner Tom Camuso rebuilt their 2nd story walk up studio in Greenpoint into an accessible, ground floor space that they've been in ever since. He continues to record and mix there and has done a number of records for a wide variety of artists, from Emily Wells to underground rapper Ka, Steven Bernstein's Wicked Knee to English stoner rockers Hag to Brookzill, a new hip hop supergroup with longtime collaborators Prince Paul, Rodrigo Brandão and Ladybug Mecca, well as producing a song for Cuba’s premier heavy metal Tendencia for an upcoming documentary.
In 2015, noted dub producer, composer and educator Raz Mesinai and Scotty started the Underground Producers Alliance. Raz had been teaching at various schools across the United States and felt the younger generation was being spoonfed stock ideas and encouraged to buy more and more software. Scotty and Raz connected on the idea that music should be taught, experienced and expressed as a personal expression of creativity and not a series of predetermined patterns or plug ins. They gathered a group of "mentors" including HPRIZM, Randall Dunn, Max Glazer, Screechy Dan, Honeychild Coleman and many other underground stalwarts. They started with the flagship Ghost Program, which is a comprehensive and interdisciplinary introduction to music production, history and musical empowerment. A year later they developed Scotty's signature program "Mixing the Hard Way", which teaches students to utilize and integrate non digital techniques, instruments and practices into their music. Scotty teaches at his studio in Brooklyn which is an ideal environment to experience the integration of analog and digital audio practices. Scotty's vintage Neve broadcast console is the perfect platform to teach students the connection between the original analog equipment and techniques and the digital environment that it is based on.
2016 brought the release of Scotty’s latest record "The Science of Sesh - from Iceland to Africa". Scotty's two closest Brazilian friends and musical collaborators, Rodrigo Brandão and Daniel “Bozzi” Toledo, were the impetuous for this release. Brandão decided he wanted to release a limited edition vinyl album of some of Scotty's unreleased and "under released" tracks that showcased his beat making and remixing achievements, which have been too often overlooked and overwhelmed by his production and mixing output. Scotty sent Rodrigo a bunch of tracks, and he came up with a ten song album that not only traces almost 25 years of music making in New York and around the world, but somehow became a cohesive statement of an artist continually growing & creating. The Wire magazine called it “a thrilling collection of timelessly mindbending music.”
Never one to rest on his laurels, or invest his energies in the latest musical trend or orthodoxy, Scotty has continued to mutate as a musician, producer, and collaborator extraordinaire.
