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Features Introducing NEM3SI$’s new label Infinite Resistance! Mindbenderz talk ‘Lord of the Rings’ and fishing, as well as the creation of their new album ‘Celestial Gateway’! Iono-Music artists One Function, Eliyahu, Invisible Reality and Dual Vision talk Robert Miles, kids, dogs and vinyl, while we chat about their current releases! Luke&Flex talk influences, the Irish rave scene, why Flex wears a mask and Play Hard, their new EP out now on Onhcet Repbulik Xtreme! Lyktum expands on his new album ‘Home’ – talking about his love of storytelling, creating new harmonies and the concept behind his musical works. Pan talks getting caught short crossing the Sahara, acid eyeballs and tells us Trance is the Answer, plus shares his thoughts on his latest release 'Beyond the Horizon' - all from a beach in Spain! Miss C chats about living with the KLF, DJing in a huge cat’s mouth, training her brain and the upcoming super-duper Superfreq Grande party at LDN East this Saturday, 16th September! NEM3SI$ - I Live for the Night – talks superficiality, psychopaths, and bittersweet success, ahead of a plethora of evocative, emotional, and passionate upcoming melodic techno releases! Psy-Sisters Spring Blast Off! We talk to DJ competition winner ROEN along with other super talents on the lineup! Blasting towards summer festivals with Bahar Canca ahead of Psy-Sisters Spring Blast! Shyisma talks parties, UFO's, and Shotokan Karate ahead of his upcoming album 'Particles' on Iono-Music! SOME1 talks family, acid, stage fright and wolves - ahead of his upcoming album release ‘Voyager’ on Iono-Music in February 2023! The Transmission Crew tell all and talk about their first London event on 24th February 2023! NIXIRO talks body, mind and music production ahead of his release 'Planet Impulse' on Static Movement's label - Sol Music! Turning the world into a fairy tale with Ivy Orth ahead of Tribal Village’s 10th Birthday Anniversary Presents: The World Lounge Project The Psy-Sisters chat about music, achievements, aspirations and the 10-Year Anniversary Party - 18/12/22! A decade of dance music with Daniel Lesden Earth Needs a Rebirth! Discussions with Psy-Trance Artist Numayma Taking a Journey Through Time with Domino New Techno Rising Star DKLUB talks about his debut release White Rock on Onhcet Republik! PAN expands on many things including his new album 'Hyperbolic Oxymoron' due for release on the 14th April 2022 on PsyWorld Records! Psibindi talks all things music including her new collaborative EP 'Sentient Rays' on Aphid Records, her band Sentience Machine and 10 years of Psy-Sisters!

Global trance superstars Above & Beyond bring their Anjunabeats to London for the Tri-State album launch Reported by NinetyNinePR / Submitted 28-02-06 06:25 Above & Beyond are one of the UK’s most exciting dance music acts, known for their peerless solo productions and remixes for the likes of Madonna and Dido, as well as for their award-winning Radio 1 Essential Mix. They make exemplary, well thought-out, brilliantly produced trance music which displays a serious understanding for the subtleties required to make beautiful, melodic arrangements. They have worked their way up the trance ladder to become some of the biggest producers in the game, and now with their debut album about to be released, they are about to one rung further up. Jonathan Grant and Paavo Siljamäki, two-thirds of A&B, met at Westminster University, and set up the world-famous Anjunabeats label in 1999. They later met one Tony McGuinness, another producer who had been made aware of them by his brother who was remixing a Chakra track at the time. Tony called them in to help complete the job and together they became the 3-piece that they are today. The A&B name became synonymous with the high-quality Anjunabeats output, and remixes for major labels like Positiva, Manifesto and Warner helped to kickstart what would prove to be a massively successful and illustrious career. Their DJing career kicked off in 2002, and since then they haven’t looked back, with massive gigs all over the world supporting for the likes of Tiesto and Ferry Corsten. Commercial success also ensued with their massive ‘Satellite’ under the name OceanLab getting heavy plays on daytime Radio1. The trio are set to release their already-acclaimed first album ‘Tri-State’ on March 6th and will host an album launch party at AnjunaBeats at Canvas in London on March 4th to help celebrate this milestone. We had a few words with Jono, Tony and Paavo to get the low-down on their debut artist LP and this hot-looking party. Tri-State feels like an album that will make your core fans very happy but which should also appeal to all fans of electronic music and beyond. Was it always your intention to create an album with such broad appeal? TONY: We wanted to make an album that would appeal to us first and foremost and the thing is we have quite broad tastes but for things that are really good. So that’s always the aim, make something that’s good at what it is rather than aim it at someone. And the start point for the album was primarily the songs. For the most part the songs are about doubt, that core human feeling of constant indecision that most people recognize, is this the right person for me, is this the right direction for me and so on, and that is where the connection will come from hopefully. Among other things you’re known for making music that rocks the dance floor, so how does the process of making an album differ from making club tracks? JONO: Working on an album is very liberating, as you don’t have to think about keeping a dance floor moving, you can concentrate on the music. I’m sure people who like our music in clubs will love it, and of course there will be club mixes of many of the tracks. I’m hoping we’ll be one of the first acts to pull off an album in this genre with real quality and sincerity, just as bands like Underworld did years ago. It’s not a token album that’s there to serve a purpose, it’s raw and real — what you’re getting is just the three of us with our vocalists. The album seems to have an almost filmic quality to it, much like your Radio 1 Essential Mix. Do you draw inspiration from movie soundtracks? PAAVO: All of us obviously end up watching lots of films on airplanes so I suppose it comes naturally. But yes, we all really like music in films and I feel that it’s great how “pure” the music in soundtracks is: it’s written specifically to be effective. You write all your own songs and they seem to have a lot of depth and emotion, do you see that as something that differentiates Above & Beyond from other dance acts? TONY: Most of the people in our scene are DJs and/or producers, rather than musicians or songwriters. And so the only way for these guys to get vocals into their material is to ask a singer to write something over a backing track that’s already been written and that’s great if they really nail it first time, but that’s very rare. We start from the opposite position — we write a song and then build a track around it that suits the lyrics. And this is the same whether we’re doing the whole thing ourselves, like ‘Far From In Love’ or ‘Alone Tonight’ for example, or writing with a singer like Ash (from Luminary who sings ‘Can’t Sleep’) or Hannah (who sang ‘Home’). We finish the song first, make sure it hangs together lyrically and melodically and then build a track around it. In that way we’re more like a band than a dance act per se. Why is the album called ‘Tri-State”? TONY: It’s a title that seems to fit a lot of things. On one level there are three of us in Above & Beyond, with three different unique personalities and different nationalities (Jono is British, Paavo is Finish and I’m Irish). On another level we have three different aspects that are involved in this album — we are producers, we are DJs and we are musicians/songwriters. And then there are the Three Realms of Existence, the three states of matter and the three dimensions. Three is the magic number! Above and Beyond rocking the Cream/Goodgreef tent at Creamfields 2005 Jono, I’m aware that you in particular have recorded under several different monikers. Who else are you guys known as, collectively or individually? Collectively we’ve also worked under the names OceanLab and Tranquility Base. Tony has worked in collaboration with his brother Liam as Nitromethane, Paavo’s other projects were: Aalto (with Miika Eloranta aka Super 8) and P.O.S. Some of Jono’s projects include Jono Grant & Darren Tate, Jono Grant & Mike Koglin and Blu. Jono and Paavo’s projects were: Free State, Deep South, Anjuna Deep and Anjunabeats. What have been the most successful projects you’ve worked on? This year we’re concentrating on Above & Beyond music: we’ve just finished our debut album ‘Tri-State’ and so far reactions seem to be pretty good! We’ve already release ‘Air For Life’ and ‘Alone Tonight’ will be out shortly — after that there’ll be another two or three singles from the album to see us through the end of the year. Next year we’re going to release an OceanLab album. For sheer volume of releases and audience reaction, OceanLab is probably our most successful project record wise — we’ve release four singles so far and all of them are considered anthems, particularly the last one ‘Satellite’ which we still get requests for. Back to the album then, what are the tracks on there that people will recognise, and any new ones they should look out for? JONO: The album has ‘Air For Life’ and ‘Alone Tonight’ in there, but all of the other tracks are new to the public. One of my personal favourites is ‘Stealing Time’, which captures the feeling of writing the album — a lot of over-time! ‘Liquid Love’ is perhaps the most emotional moment of the album, but I’ll let you be the judge of that! The album preview podcast you created made into iTunes top 10 music podcasts. Have you been surprised by how well the album has been received so far? PAAVO: Podcasts were a new, interesting world for me when we first thought of making one: I didn’t even know they have charts etc. We were amazed to see how popular the podcast became, and how quickly: it entered the charts after just 24hours of being available! If you are online, podcasts are definitely something to check out: they’re free and easy to listen to, and ours can be found there by doing a search for “tri-state”. Tell us about album launch party at Canvas in London on March 4th. Who’s on the line-up and who are you looking forward to catching? JONO: I’m looking forward to catching Stephen J. Kroos in particular. Stephen’s an extremely gifted producer from Holland who has his own sound, so I’m interested to hear what he has in store for us. You guys will be playing an extra-special 3-hour set on the night — what can we expect and how does it work when you DJ together? TONY: The usual stuff, a bit of reggae, some waltz tunes and of course ‘Land Of Hope And Glory’! Seriously, we’ll be playing stuff you’ve been hearing on ‘Trance Around The World’ and some exclusive plays of tracks from the album and, of course, some classic Anjuna tunes. We normally DJ with just two. I’ve been saying recently that we’re like Chelsea — there’s two in the team and three in the squad — but for big gigs we go back to back to back with the three of us. The Canvas party is being hosted by your record label, Anjunabeats, which has run sell-out parties at venues like Turnmills and Passion in the past. Looking at your website (www.anjunabeats.com), Anjunabeats seems to be as a much a community as a record label, would you agree? PAAVO: Definitely, and it feels great when people from all over the world become friends through the label! The international aspect of the label and parties is overwhelming: there are people flying to the launch party from faraway places like Israel, Canada, South Africa and around Europe. The community behind Anjunabeats is the driving force that not only keeps the thing alive, but inspires us to take things forward. Who in your eyes have been the real pioneers of trance music? The people who have made the genre what it is and have always led the way? As trance is a continuously evolving genre, it’s near to impossible to pinpoint people who have always stayed at the top of the development. In the 90s people like Sven Väth, Matt Darey and Ferry Corsten really set the ground for music I’d call trance and in the more recent years people like Kyau vs. Albert, David West, Junkie XL, Remy and Roland Klinkenberg have all been making very influential records that have helped the scene to evolve further. Thanks to Anjuna for the images. Share this :: : : : Follow HarderFaster :: Other Features By NinetyNinePR: Polish Poison — introducing DJ Keen A world first! Will Paterson reveals all as Frantic teams up with Moondance for a huge free party All-time trance king Ferry Corsten rolls into town for Heat NYE Lashed 3rd Birthday preview with promoter Roman Perth’s finest Abs cranks up the Volume The views and opinions expressed in this review are strictly those of the author only for which HarderFaster will not be held responsible or liable. Comments: From: Stevi D on 28th Feb 2006 10:38.58 Lookin so fwd to this on Saturday!!! Bring it on From: Matt Smallwood on 28th Feb 2006 18:57.06 Nice one chaps! Glad you're loving the new Electrilogy single 'Boowai' and good luck for Saturday! From: ajay on 2nd Mar 2006 08:17.32 Looking forward to this on Sat!!!

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