ABOVE AND BEYOND RELEASE 49-MINUTE, 39 TRACK AMBIENT ALBUM FLOW STATE // OUT NOW VIA ANJUNABEATS
Stream, Purchase, & Download Flow State // HERE.
It’s been nearly a year from their last full album release of Common Ground, released in 2018 on Ajunabeats. Above & Beyond (Paavo Siljamäki, Tony McGuinness, Jono Grant) have spent the last several years on an almost non stop tour traveling the world, playing some of the largest and most artist to audience emotionally-connected shows in the electronic scene today. Flow State is a 49 minute panoramic journey of ambient compositions and warm, neo-classical soundscapes that offer moments of meditative calm in these and often overwhelming times.
A break from the anthemic dance sound that swept Above & Beyond’s Common Ground LP to #3 in the Billboard Album Charts in 2018, Flow State is the culmination of a journey which began at Burning Man in 2014.
A chance encounter on the Playa led to a spontaneous sunset yoga set on the infamous Robot Heart stage, guided by renowned yogi Elena Brower. A magical and spiritual experience for those present, it inspired Above & Beyond to begin opening their biggest global gigs with yoga sets, creating transformative experiences for 25,000 strong crowds at The Gorge Amphitheater in Washington and Huntington Beach, California. The original Burning Man yoga set (Above & Beyond - Robot Heart - Burning Man 2014) has subsequently gone on to amass over 2 million streams on SoundCloud.
As the band began writing more original music for these yoga sessions, the seed for Flow State was sown.
”Our music has always been about getting in touch with, and understanding and accepting our emotions. After those amazing yoga sets, we realized that there is a bigger place for this more reflective music within our little universe,” explains Above & Beyond’s Paavo Siljamaki. “With the Flow State project, we want to help bring people’s attention and focus towards helping themselves find better mental fitness and overall happiness in life,” adds Siljamaki. “Through raised awareness, being more present, one can reach a state of flow: a creative and free state of mind where time, fear and stress dissipate.”
To long-time fans of Above & Beyond, this new album will come as no surprise; quieter moment have always been essential components of their chart-topping electronic albums. Alongside 14 new compositions, 3 of the band’s classic ambient works are remastered for Flow State, including the iconic ‘Sun In Your Eyes’, a track currently given a new lease of life via DJ support from taste makers such as Jamie XX.
Designed to be experienced in its entirety, the LP rewards complete, focuses listening and encourages a head space where the journey becomes the destination - extending a canon that includes Brian Eno’s ‘Music For Airports’, KLF’s ‘Chill Out’, and The Orb’s ‘Adventures Beyond The Ultraworld’.
In addition to the 49 minute journey, Elena Brower leads a 13 minute life-affirming talk set to the music from Flow State. The band and Elena hope it aids in the journey towards self-acceptance, “Flow State is about the subtlest, innermost conversation, trusting ourselves, and looking inward for acceptance. That acceptance of our own humanity is an experience of Flow State. It’s a profoundly peaceful space for listening and healing".
(Pictured above, Above & Beyond, From left to right, Paavo Siljamäki, Tony McGuinness, Jono Grant)
About Above & Beyond:
One of the most Successful trance acts of the 2000’s and 2010’s, Above & Beyond are a British trio known for their production and remix work, as well as their DJ performances are record label. Founded in 2000 in London, the trio is comprised of Jono Grant, Tony McGuinness, and Paavo Siljamäki. Although, they garnered early acclaim for a high-profile remix of Madonna’s “What It Feels Like For A Girl”, Above & Beyond experienced a steady ascent as producers and as a live act. They eventually graduated to sell-out venues in their native U.K. and in the U.S. After breaking into the main stream in 2015 with their third studio album, We Are All We Need, they scored a Top Three U.S. hit with 2018’s Common Ground.
Prior to founding Above & Beyond, Grant and Siljamäki met the University of Westminster and founded the Anjunabeats label. Shortly afterward, they met McGuinness, teamed up as Above & Beyond, and did a remix for Chakra’s “Home”. One remix led to another, culminating in 2001 with an attention-getting remix of Madonna’s “What It Feels Like For A Girl”. Other early Above & Beyond remixes of note included Aurora’s “Ordinary World”, Fragma’s “Everytime You Need Me”, and Perpetuous Dreamer’s “The Sound of Goodbye.” As a DJ act, Above & Beyond made their debut in 2002 and steadily worked their way up into the Top Ten of the much-touted DJ Mag Top 100 poll.
From a production stand point, Above & Beyond made their debut in 2002 with the single “Far From In Love,” a vocal trance anthem featuring Kate Cameron. Around this same time, Grant, McGuinness, and Siljamäki presented the first volume of their Anjunabeats mixtape series and formed the group OceanLab, their most prominent alias and splinter project (among many others, including Anjunabeats, Tranquility Base, Dirt Devils, Free State, Rollerball, Tongue of God, and Zed-X). They made their production debut under that name in 2001 with “Clear Blue Water” and continued releasing new material as such throughout the decade, most notably the smash hit “Satellite” in 2004. Above & Beyond’s full-length album debut came in 2006 with Tri-State. The trio continued to release supplemental singles and issued a second album, Group Therapy, in 2011, following it with a set of stripped-down re-recordings titled Acoustic.
We Are All We Need, released in 2015, was their most successful set to that point. Their third studio album, it was heavily invested in song craft with contributions from the likes of Zoe Johnston and Alex Vargas, and debuted at number 12 in the U.K. In the U.S., it topped Billboard’s dance chart and cracked the Top 40 of the all-genre Billboard 200. The trio returned the following year with Acoustic II, which featured stripped-back, string-laden reworkings of tracks from their 2015 album, as well as their extensive back catalog. Group Therapy 200 arrived in 2016, along with the 13th installment of Anjunabeats. The next year, Group Therapy 248 and Journey to ABGT250 were released.
In 2018, the trio delivered their fourth official album, Common Ground. The effort rose to the number three spot on Billboard 200, the highest for a British electronic group in the chart’s history. The set also featured Zoe Johnston, Richard Bedford, Justine Suissa, and Marty Longstaff on guest vocals. Early 2019 saw the release of the single “Distorted Truth” ahead of the arrival of the Common Ground Companion EP, which arrived later that March.
~Jason Birchmeier, Rovi
About Anjunabeats:
Anjunabeats is the label owned and A&R’d by Above & Beyond (Jono Grant, Tony McGuinness, and Paavo Siljamäki. Starting its journey back in 2000 as an outlet for Above & Beyond’s own productions, the label soon grew to encompass an ever-growing family of global talent. Over 14 years, Anjunabeats has helped kick start the careers of Matt Zo, Arty, Andrew Bayer, Boom Jinx, Super 8 & Tab, Oliver Smith, Jaytech, ilan Bluestone, and many more.
As well as the legendary Anjunabeats Volume series mixed by Above & Beyond, Anjunabeats has also released a number of treasured artist albums including Above & Beyond’s own classic “Group Therapy”, Mat Zo’s eclectic “Damage Control” and Andrew Bayer’s experimental “If It Were You, We’d Never Leave”.
With over 300 releases bearing the iconic Anjuna ‘A’, the story continues onward and upward as the next chapter is yet to unveil many more releases.