With his name now resounding across global club land, Norway’s Fehrplay emerges back on the scene with the hotly tipped follow-up to January’s “I Can’t Stop It” for Pryda Friends. Initially unveiled during his guest mix for Above & Beyond’s Group Therapy radio show, “Phantom” picks up where its predecessor left off on the trail of no-nonsense progressive house. Euphorically charged and melodically refined, the tracks ascending energy and overriding synths provide a defining guise to the compositional stamina that has made Jonas Fehr indispensible to Prydz’s overarching musical mission. One thing is for certain: Pryda Friends are out to take back the progressive house charts for 2013 and armed with this Norwegian trailblazer, their chances look considerably good.
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While new clubs Hakkasan and Light rack up residents for their opening seasons, Las Vegas’s mainstay day and night venues at the Wynn have enlisted Above & Beyond for this summer’s festivities. The trance group will bring their Group Therapy movement to nightclubs XS and Surrender as well as Encore Beach Club. Spanning May, June, and July, Above & Beyond take their rare act to Sin City for a seven-event showcase.
After appearing on the radio shows of such names as Paul Oakenfold, Armin van Buuren and Ferry Corsten, a certain “Walter White” is reintroducing itself to those who may have forgotten. After earning a spot as a standout on Anjunabeats Volume 10, the tune has been released as a single with an additional 90 seconds of Above & Beyond magic. Acting as a soundtrack within a single, the track journeys from the melancholic to the intense, making its way to a trance melody that proved its power at Ultra’s A State Of Trance Stage. More than a club anthem, “Walter White” goes above and beyond into new realms of trance territory.
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Above & Beyond have announced that North London’s Alexandra Palace will be the location for this year’s live broadcast of Group Therapy. The trio will take over the sprawling venue’s Great Hall on October 26, bringing still unrevealed guests with them for Group Therapy 050. The show will be broadcast around the world, but for those in the area, registration for presale tickets ends tonight at Midnight, BST. Presale tickets go on sale April 24th at 9 A.M. BST, with the general sale beginning April 26th. For ticket information and to preregister, click here.
At 12:45 Sunday afternoon, a voice cut across an edit of Hard Rock Sofa & Dirty Shade’s “Collapsar,” causing a still-filling Ultra Mega Structure to turn toward the sound.
“Good morning Miami!” the voice rang out. “Are you ready for The Expedition?” Heads started nodding. “Are you ready for 11 hours of A State of Trance?” A yes-shaped roar emerged.
The voice was Armin van Buuren’s, the set was Tritonal‘s, and the effect was pandemonium. Projected on screen from the on-site ASOT studio, the patriarch of the trance family beamed down at the crowd, encouraging them to give it up for their fellow Americans, the trance team from Texas that kicked off the live ASOT 600 experience and played the first of the day’s ten sets.
Hundreds of DJs, seven stages, two weekends. Where do you start? Who do you see and who do you skip? Dancing Astronaut has you covered. We’ve filled you in on the acts you can’t ignore for Weekend One, spearheaded by dubstep and deep house-heavy rosters. The second weekend, however, sees another two genres at the forefront along with some of the biggest names in popular dance music. From the whopping trance offerings to the invigorating trap overture, to the best in progressive and electro, here are the stages you can’t ignore at Ultra Weekend Two.
For months and months, Anjunabeats has been slowly releasing tracks off the tenth volume of their label compilation, but today the entire album is out. As an Anjuna fan, you’ll know Sunny Lax’s “Isla Margarita,” Audien’s “Wayfarer,” the club mix of “Alchemy,” Oliver Smith’s “Pressure,” and Ost & Meyer’s “Here We Go” — and that’s only disc one of the package. All thirty tracks are Anjunabeats exclusives and Above & Beyond includes four of their own productions, making this body of work quite the necessity for any serious trance fan. With artists like Andrew Bayer making a huge mark on the dance music world as of late, and imprints like Anjunadeep doing some pretty crazy A&R, there’s really no stopping Anjunabeats in 2013.
Though we still have to wait for Anjunabeats Volume 10, Above & Beyond have released one of the compilation’s treasures early this week. Now available on Anjunabeats is the trio’s club mix of “Black Room Boy,” the final single from 2011′s Group Therapy. Already established as one of the album’s more dancefloor-ready tracks, the club mix emphasizes the bassline, takes some of the emotion out of the vocals and does away with instrumental bridges, opting instead for reverberating synths and a thumping beat. While not a dramatic departure from the original, the club mix successfully makes the track more accessible to those outside the trance family.
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Though Above & Beyond have already thrown a Roseland Ballroom bash to celebrate the upcoming release of Anjunabeats Volume 10, the trio has released a minimix with some of the album’s highlights for those not in attendance. The mix samples ten songs in ten minutes, creating a sort of trance sampler platter of the impending 31-track compilation. Showcasing A&B’s own club mix of “Back Room Boy” and upcoming instrumental “Walter White,” the mini-mix also features tracks from the likes of Arty, Andrew Bayer, and Kyau & Albert. Entrancing even in abbreviated form, the mini-mix does its utmost to hold over Anjunabeats fans until the compilation’s official March 4th release. Click past the break for the tracklist.
“Group Therapy captures the relationship between us, our music and you, our audience, and the magic that happens when those three things interact. It’s something you’ve all taken into your hearts and it lies at the centre of everything that we do – the community, the connection, the interaction. Our radio show is our weekly Group Therapy with all of you.”
Above & Beyond attract a cult-like following, one that I’m not sure I fully understood until last Saturday. I’m not a member of the “trance family,” it isn’t my favorite subgenre of electronic music, and I’ve only seen Above & Beyond twice before — neither time from start to finish — but I recognize their legacy. When I was offered a one way ticket to Trancelandia I eagerly accepted. Although the controversy currently surrounding dance music events didn’t effect my experience, it did give me the opportunity to critically examine why I was there.
With the popularity of “raves” growing, their value, safety, and purpose have come under scrutiny causing debate amongst dance music’s most vocal critics and supporters. A recent article published by The LA Times reduced festivals and similar events to nothing more than cash-fueled death traps. Anyone who has spent time squished between strangers just to hear a DJ play for three hours knows that’s simply not the case.
