Artist: Paula Cazenave
Title: 'Funktional EP'
Label: Hardgroove

Ben Sims put it plainly when this one landed: “I'm really happy to have Paula Cazenave debut on Hardgroove.” What that leaves out is how long the two of them have been passing records back and forth.

Most of the traffic has gone the other way. Combine Audio is hers, launched in 2017 and now carrying more than eighty releases, and Ben Sims is on it. On 'Crazy Trip EP' he reworked every single one of her tracks.

Ken Ishii, DJ Shufflemaster, DJ Rush and Gayle San have all been through Combine Audio too, which is a roster most labels would take. Her own line on running it: “This label is not for me, it's for everyone.” The stated point is to give emerging artists somewhere to go.

She has been at this a long time. The DJing started in the late nineties, fitted around studying audiovisual production and sound engineering, with weekend bookings around the Basque Country where she grew up. Barcelona has been home since 2003, and she founded the Reakt event series there.

The records followed in the middle of the next decade, on vinyl. Grind Records was her first label, and its opening release sold out in 2009. 'Otto EP' on Symbolism in 2022 was the first time Ben Sims released her, and UNCAGE and Arkham Audio have had her since.

One more thing worth knowing. Ask her who shaped her and the names that come back are James Ruskin, The Advent, Surgeon, Slam and Ben Sims. Hardgroove the style, as opposed to the label, came up here recently on Kev D's 'Double Zero'.

Out now. Bandcamp has the EP, and her SoundCloud is where the DJ sets live.