Above & Beyond To Hold Group Therapy At Mansion Miami + Acoustic Aspirations

When three innately adept musicians are forged together with a lightning strike of creativity, the result is a class of music that’s Above & Beyond anything you’ve ever heard.

Above & Beyond’s ascent to the top of the trance world began when Jono Grant met Paavo Siljamäki at university thirteen years ago. After founding their Anjunabeats label and releasing the energy packed Volume One, they caught the attention of Tony McGuiness, then A&R and marketing director for Warner Music Group. He approached Paavo and Jono about collaborating on a remix and they’ve been churning out uplifting trance anthems with the Midas touch ever since.

After DJing the world’s most monstrous festivals and lavish clubs, launching a series of successful podcasts and producing award-winning albums, some might be content with the view from the top of A&B’s trance empire; but not these three. They continue to destroy creative boundaries and have set out to conquer new territory by rearranging their club tracks for the concert hall.

Their new ambitious endeavor is a series of acoustic performances where Paavo, Jono and Tony ditch the decks and take to a grand piano, cello, and guitar while a string quartet, harp and percussion section accompany. The evolution of this project was natural, as all three have been playing instruments since they were kids and view themselves as musicians and composers before DJs and producers. From Paavo:

“Ever since we’ve started we’ve been a band. That’s what we are… A lot of our songs are written in more acoustic form than they actually end up in so this whole acoustic project has been something that has been at the back of our minds for a very, very long time.”

Porchester Hall

The first shows occurred in London’s Porchester Hall in June and the next two are scheduled to take place at the landmark Greek Theatre in Los Angeles on October 12^th and 13^th (tickets). My biggest hope is the announcement of another set for everyone on the east coast. Miami’s Bayfront Park has an amphitheater with a panoramic view and warm winter weather, which is when the acoustic album and DVD of the Porchester Hall performance are set to debut, so a show to support the release makes sense, right? Please?

Klipsch Ampitheater at Bayfront Park

Zoë Johnston lends her voice to the project and she’s no stranger to the A&B acoustic sound. The precursor to Porchester Hall was an intimate session in a hot air balloon celebrating the release of Anjunabeats Volume Six (watch it here).  Alex Vargas is a new face who covered Richard Bedford’s vocals and gave a supposedly masterful performance. He’s also rumored to be featured on their new studio album due out next year. The talented Annie Drury filled in for Justine Suissa on the Oceanlab tracks and Ashley Tomberlin’s part on Can’t Sleep. Here’s the track list you can expect:

• Small Moments Like These
• Miracle
• You Got To Go
• Sun & Moon
• On A Good Day
• Good For Me
• Satellite + Stealing Time
• Sirens of the Sea
• Can’t Sleep
• Love Is Not Enough
• Thing Called Love
• Alone Tonight

The acoustic rendition of Oceanlab’s “On A Good Day” has been around for a few years and leaves a trail of tears in its wake whenever featured in sets, so seeing the same treatment applied to other classic A&B productions can practically guarantee an emotional listening experience.

What’s next for Above and Beyond? Considering they spun at the unveiling of Virgin Galactic’s VSS Enterprise, I don’t think an acoustic performance from space is entirely out of the question. Realistically though, the titans of trance recently announced they were coming to take over Mansion and provide the denizens of Miami with some Group Therapy on September 20th. While tickets sold out within minutes, Mansion is holding a secret sale to release more tickets tomorrow- sign up here. I was fortunate enough to get mine, so I’ll be joining fellow members of the trance family under Mansion’s legendary lasers for a night not soon forgotten.

Till then, check out this acoustic teaser of “Love Is Not Enough” for your aural enjoyment:

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