{"id":6331,"date":"2025-09-05T14:44:52","date_gmt":"2025-09-05T19:44:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/streamapse.com\/Magazine\/?p=6331"},"modified":"2025-11-09T19:22:02","modified_gmt":"2025-11-10T00:22:02","slug":"above-beyond-has-always-been-about-fostering-connection-in-their-community","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/streamapse.com\/Magazine\/?p=6331","title":{"rendered":"Above & Beyond Has Always Been About Fostering Connection In Their Community"},"content":{"rendered":"

Above & Beyond are an electronic music group consisting of English musicians\/DJs Jono Grant, Tony McGuinness and Finnish musician\/DJ Paavo Siljam\u00e4ki. Formed in 2000, they are the owners of London-based electronic dance music labels Anjunabeats, Anjunadeep and Anjunachill, and also host a weekly radio show titled Group Therapy Radio.<\/p>\n

The trio has been consistently ranked among DJ Magazine’s Top 100 DJs Poll; coming at their highest position of No. 4 in 2008, with their most recent position of No. 53 in 2024.<\/p>\n

Whether through their live shows or heartfelt music, Above & Beyond has always been about fostering connection in their community. But for Jono Grant, Tony McGuinness, and Paavo Siljam\u00e4ki, their fifth artist album\u2014their first since 2018\u2019s Common Ground\u2014was just as much about reconnecting with each other. \u201cWe all had time away doing solo projects, and being away during lockdown when, of course, we couldn\u2019t get together and we couldn\u2019t do shows,\u201d McGuinness tells Apple Music\u2019s Zane Lowe. \u201cOur world really changed over those years.\u201d During that time, Siljam\u00e4ki had moved out of the UK, which meant they had to rethink how they worked as a group.<\/p>\n

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Stream Bigger Than All Of Us<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/span> Image Courtesy Of Apple Services<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

To help shape the album, the trio brought in veteran producer Dave Dresden (of Gabriel & Dresden) as an external A&R. \u201cThe hardest thing is deciding what tracks go on the album,\u201d McGuinness says. Dresden became a trusted filter, helping them whittle down dozens of demos into something cohesive. \u201cStart a Fire\u201d was one of those once-dormant ideas, born from a lyric McGuinness had stored in his notebook and paired with one of Siljam\u00e4ki\u2019s old demos. Anchored by longtime collaborator Richard Bedford\u2019s soaring top line, it\u2019s slow-burning and deceptively uplifting, revealing the ache of a love you can\u2019t confess. \u201cIt starts in that dark, quiet place,\u201d McGuinness explains. \u201cBut I think for writing for Above & Beyond, you\u2019ve got to end up there\u2026 If you\u2019re going from really small humble to that, you\u2019ve gone a long way, and that\u2019s how you get people to cry.\u201d<\/p>\n

Those lingering melodies and stirring lyrics run throughout Bigger Than All of Us, whose mini-meditations on love, loss, heartbreak, and hope\u2014despite their universal themes\u2014feel as if they were custom-made for a single person. \u201cOur songs have always been very rooted in reality and life,\u201d Siljam\u00e4ki says. \u201cThey\u2019re like little time capsules of what was going on in our lives at the time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Zo\u00eb Johnston, another familiar voice in A&B\u2019s world, helped write the devastating \u201cQuicksand (Don\u2019t Go),\u201d which confronts impending loss with grief and grace, while navigating the passing of her father. But glimmers of light break through on tracks like the driving pep talk \u201cWhen You Believe\u201d and the unwavering \u201cRide at Dawn.\u201d The title track, written with Justine Suissa, is stripped down to ambient chords and \u201980s drums, letting her lyrics shine as she reminds us how deeply connected we are without even knowing it: \u201cYou think your joy is nothing\/How could laughter change the world?\/How can just one act of kindness change the way a life unfurls?\/Because it\u2019s bigger than you\/It\u2019s bigger than me\/It\u2019s bigger than all of us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Every product\/service is selected by editors. Products\/Services you buy through these links may earn “SMG” a commission or revenue.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Above & Beyond are an electronic music group consisting of English musicians\/DJs Jono Grant, Tony McGuinness and Finnish musician\/DJ Paavo Siljam\u00e4ki. Formed in 2000, they are the owners of London-based electronic dance music labels Anjunabeats, Anjunadeep and Anjunachill, and also host a weekly radio show titled Group Therapy Radio. The trio has been consistently ranked […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6333,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6331","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/streamapse.com\/Magazine\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6331","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/streamapse.com\/Magazine\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/streamapse.com\/Magazine\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/streamapse.com\/Magazine\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/streamapse.com\/Magazine\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6331"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/streamapse.com\/Magazine\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6331\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6334,"href":"http:\/\/streamapse.com\/Magazine\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6331\/revisions\/6334"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/streamapse.com\/Magazine\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6333"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/streamapse.com\/Magazine\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/streamapse.com\/Magazine\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6331"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/streamapse.com\/Magazine\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}