#153 Ben Sims: what is Hardgroove anyway? ”I wasn’t expecting it to be a term that other people use to describe their music”

2025-01-28

The Not A Diving Podcast is supported by AC55ID... head over to www.ac55id.com to check out the fastest growing electronic music marketplace, a central hub for music discovery, streaming and purchasing!--What is Hardgroove anyway? It's a genre of techno isn't it? A general sort of vibe? Maybe even a music trend that has saved techno as a whole from the encroachment of the execrable nonsense that really shouldn't be included in the genre in the first place?Well actually Hardgroove is...

What is Hardgroove anyway? It's a genre of techno isn't it? A general sort of vibe? Maybe even a music trend that has saved techno as a whole from the encroachment of the execrable nonsense that really shouldn't be included in the genre in the first place?

Well actually Hardgroove is really just Ben Sims techno. It's a term that he coined in the mid 90s and the name of a label he's been running since not too long after that. But it's also become a kind of shorthand for a wave in the music whose renewed popularity in recent years has been a something of a lifeline for a corner of the scene that had got itself into a very bad spot indeed.

So we talk about all that in this episode, as well as what it's like to be one of the biggest techno DJs on the planet, as well as his journey from being fascinated by early hip hop, through Acid House and onto the global techno circuit that he's inhabited for a good few decades now.

This is a great conversation with a true legend of the scene... get involved!

If you're into what we're doing here on the pod then you can support the show on Patreon! There are two tiers - "Solidarity" for $4 a month, which features the show without ads, regular bonus podcasts, and extra content. And "Musicality" which for a mere $10 a month gets you all the music we release on Hotflush and affiliate labels AND other music too, some of which never comes out anywhere else.

You can also make a one-off donation to the podcast using a card, with Paypal, or your Ethereum wallet! Head over to scubaofficial.io/support.

Plus there's also a private area for Patreon supporters in the Hotflush Discord Server... but anyone can join the conversation in the public channels.

Listen to the music discussed on the show via the Not A Diving Podcast Spotify playlist

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Comments (3)