In the year 2000, three creative powerhouse artistes formed a group revolutionising the genre of trance music and the entertainment universe. Coalescing music with melody, movement and meaning, Above & Beyond, has churned out tunes beyond the realm of ordinary. Also known for their uplifting productions, Jono Grant, Tony McGuinness, and Paavo Siljamäki, the innovative trance trio were in Bangalore recently, when Expresso caught up with them to chat about their music and future plans.
■Tell us about your first encounter. How did you all meet up? Paavo: Jono and I met at University and set up the label Anjunabeats, and we met Tony a mew months after when he called us in to work on a remix project for a track he had done with this brother, Liam. Since then, we stuck together.
■Why do you think trance is becoming more popular around the world? Jono: Trance is becoming more popular because it is quite accessible to people getting into dance music. The internet has also been fantastic by allowing people access to the music they love, regardless of their location. Now is a very exciting time for all electronic music because technology is developing at such a fast rate, so it will be interesting to see what happens.
■What do you think of the music scene in India? Paavo: It has been very interesting to see how deep down the idea of dance music goes in India. Everywhere we’ve been so far, we have been hearing traditional dance music, and we keep on finding similarities with Indian traditional music and what we do. The club scene seems to be growing rapidly, most probably as the internet now means people can listen to their favourite music everywhere. Our radio show Trance Around The World, for example, comes out every week, and is free two hours of everything we’re currently into.
■You are known as Trance Gods and DJ superstars.
How do you cope with the rock and roll lifestyle? Jono: Sometimes, the people in the industry can get really aggressive, and also, the lack of privacy can make travelling a pain. But the passion for the music makes us go on.
■How was your experience at Sunburn 2007? Jono: It was great. It lived up to its reputation, and visiting Anjuna Beach at that time was phenomenal, especially because our first label was named after it.
■Tell us about Anjunabeats Volume 8 Paavo: Anjunabeats Volume series always show the present and future of our labels Anjunabeats and Anjunadeep.
This year, for Volume 8, we have an unprecedented range of great material to choose from, and got quite involved in fine-tweaking the music for the compilation, and have been thrilled with the results.
■The future of Above and Beyond is? Paavo: We are working on a new artist album that will be released in 2011. But like Tony once put it, you approach the future like a man in a rowing boat — you see where you’re coming from, and know the direction you’re going, but the future is always full of surprises.