Above & Beyond: How a Turning Point Led the Trio to Its First Electronic Album in Seven Years

As the world awakened from COVID, Above & Beyond found themselves at a crossroads.

"We were at that junction where it was like, do we just become a legacy act, where we're just going to dine out on our past records, or do we actually write a new album? To me, there was no choice," Jono Grant told Beatportal.

But not all of the band, comprising fellow members Paavo Siljamäki and Tony McGuinness, was as sure, making Bigger Than All Of Us – their first fully electronic album in seven years – a watershed moment.

“When I found things very difficult because of my personal life situations and issues with music and burnout, I went through a little phase where I felt like maybe me and music were done,” Siljamäki said. “So personally, I felt like maybe I would never make music again.”

The 16-track LP, released via Anjunabeats on July 18, is born from opportunities seized and challenges surmounted, both individually and together. It reconvenes Grant, Siljamäki, and McGuinness, who each took time to explore creative projects outside Above & Beyond, not only with each other but also with longtime collaborators like Zoë Johnston, Justine Suissa, and Richard Bedford, who, over the years, have become as indispensable to the electronic trio as its founders.

Rife with sounds equal parts fresh and familiar, ranging from agile drum & bass to emotive trance, Bigger Than All Of Us has through lines of connection and community – fitting themes for an album arriving in the middle of Anjunabeats’ milestone 25th year. Since its establishment in 2000, Above & Beyond’s beloved label has evolved into a behemoth brand responsible for their famed Group Therapy radio show, two sub-labels (Anjunadeep and Anjunachill), and live events around the world.

Bigger Than All Of Us puts an exclamation point on recent anniversary celebrations, including the Anjuna25 showcase in New York and “We Are Anjunafamily” fan story campaign, which invites fans to submit photos and anecdotes about what this music and community mean to them. The are shared on Above & Beyond’s website, and some have even been featured on their radio show (now more than 600 episodes deep) and social channels. 

In a Q&A with Beatportal ahead of their North American amphitheater and club tour in support of Bigger Than All Of Us, Grant, Siljamäki, and McGuinness reflect on the album's emergence from a period of reconnection, personal evolution, and renewed creative purpose.

This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.

This is your first studio album in seven years. You’d previously released a new studio album nearly every three years. What led you to take more time between Common Ground (2018) and this LP?

McGuinness: COVID came, and we couldn't properly work together for the better part of two years. Then people wanted to go out and party, so we did loads of gigs, and we thought, "We are playing the same tracks we've been playing for a long time." We all decided that it was time to make a new album, and it just took a while for those decisions and actions to reach fruition. It didn't feel like any longer a gap, but that's the sort of magic of the COVID years — they swallowed time.

Did the thought that you might not make another studio album cross your mind during this time?

Jono Grant: I didn't think we wouldn't make another album, but I think it was important to because we started going out in 2021 and doing reopening gigs when the world opened up again, and it was amazing for a good six months to a year. We were at that junction where it was like, do we just become a legacy act, where we're just going to dine out on our past records, or do we actually write a new album? To me, there was no choice. I wouldn't want to just play the same old records again and again and again. I still do enjoy playing them, but I think it's important to have a body of work that we could share with the world again to reinvigorate the whole thing for ourselves, if nothing else.

Siljamäki: We're three individuals, and all our life stories intertwine with what is happening with our band, and that's been a real strength in many cases. For example, when I found things very difficult because of my personal life situations and issues with music and burnout, I went through a little phase where I felt like maybe me and music were done. I found it terrifying; it was a really difficult time in my life. So personally, I felt like maybe I would never make music again. But I feel like I'm really fortunate that the love for music has returned. It's taken a long time, but it's renewed my enthusiasm for what we do, our kind of music, and the whole thing.  

You continued to perform together but also worked on other projects outside of Above & Beyond. Did stepping outside of the group creatively give you any new perspective that helped shape this album?

Siljamäki: I've realized it's a healthy thing for all of us to have these places where we can experiment and go to places where the band might not go. It only makes us better, and hopefully, we can bring some of the things we learned outside the band into the band. I think that's on this album; Bigger Than All Of Us is a good example. There are some new influences that might not be there if we didn't have this existence outside it.

What would you say those influences are?

Siljamäki: One of the things I think we all realized is that we can do lots of different kinds of things. Like Jono has this cool project with this friend Darren [Tate] called JODA, where they were literally playing with analog synths. 

For me, I've realized how dance music is much bigger than we think. For example, in the Caribbean, I’ve been hearing four-on-the-floor dance music and having these moments where I'm like, "Oh my God, I always thought dance music was electronic dance music, but there's all this other dance music that is very related to what we do." So, I've been experimenting with some of the grooves and trying to bring a bit of that into our thing. 

A lot can happen in seven years. What does this album indicate about who you are now and how your sound has evolved?

Grant: In terms of the approach for this album, Tony and I sat down and listened to our first album, Tri-State, together. I was really keen that this album would have that kernel of what Above & Beyond was about in that first album…to channel the sentiment and emotional power behind it into the new album. 

There's another school of thought that says, “Try and put 10 radio hits on an album and have some success,” but we are just not at that point in our career where we wanted to do that. We've never really done that or had the desire to do that sort of thing. We wanted to make an album for us and, therefore, for the fans as well.

McGuinness: I think what we did with Tri-State was make an album of Above & Beyond music that was not tied to a particular side of what we were doing at the time, and I think this album has that same sense of freedom. We're not trying to say, “This is what Above & Beyond sounds like in 2025," so much as "Here is a collection of songs that we hope you like, produced in a way that feels appropriate to the song."

Grant: We've never chased after a particular sound of now and tried to pipe it into Above & Beyond. This album is more of that. 

How difficult was it to work on this album, given that you don’t all live in London anymore?

McGuinness: Obviously, it makes a difference when you are not in the same country. There are periods when Paavo is in the UK and we're working together, and then there are periods where he is in Finland, but the thing most different about this album was us hiring Dave Dresden as our A&R to help with coordination. Dave was there to principally help us work together in this new way and pick tracks that would make the album. He was somebody we really trusted, with a great track record; he was A&R for Pete Tong back in the day at London Records. 

This helped take a lot of stress out of the situation. We sent him all the demos we had in any sort of half-finished state and asked him to pick the ones we should aim at. That’s normally something people within a band are arguing about up until the last minute – "This is my song, and I want it on the album." 

Was the decision to bring him in mainly a factor of distance?

Grant: It was the distance and also the fact that we had a lot of demos we'd written years ago that, for whatever reason, hadn't seen the light of day. Getting someone else involved and having them simply say, "This is really good, you should finish this," was very valuable. I think it gave members of the band confidence to finish them, and obviously, certain people like certain tracks, but it also helped carry the group forward when people didn't like some of the tracks as well. 

McGuinness: I think we just all bought into the idea of Dave's word being final in terms of track selection – at least I did. There were tracks we turned down for whatever reasons in the past, but with this fresh start and us all very keen to make the album process as easy as possible, I think him highlighting some of these things that we'd done but forgotten, including the title track – which had been around for some time but never really found its place – was very helpful.

Grant: “Bigger Than All Of Us” is a good example because I wasn't sure about that track, and once we heard that David liked it, it certainly helped me at least. 

McGuinness: Yeah, and then suddenly, before you know it, you absolutely fall in love with the track. Music is so subjective, especially in a band where you are sometimes not seeing eye to eye.

I was going to ask who came up with the idea to call the album Bigger Than All Of Us, but it sounds like it might have been a little more heavily inspired by Dave than by anybody in the group. Is that right?

Grant: Not in terms of choosing the title, but the track might not have been on there if Dave hadn't spoken, so in that sense, yes, absolutely. 

McGuinness: It was James [Grant] who said, "What about this as a title track?" It just seemed so obvious. Initially, I had some reservations about what the song was actually saying, but I've fallen in love with my own interpretation of it.

When you say you had some reservations, what do you mean by that?

McGuinness: I have my own understanding of how the universe is connected. I don't believe in manifestation, I don't believe in a conscious universe, so I suppose I was just slightly worried that was how it was going to be interpreted, but the conversation's all been about our community of fans around the world and how the Anjuna experience and Above & Beyond experience are bigger than all of us. 

Grant: From my perspective, the lyrics are more about the consequences and the impact of things we do, in the sense that the small things matter. I saw it more of a bit like the song on the OceanLab album [Sirens of the Sea], "If I Could Fly": “A simple smile can change a day.”

Siljamäki: For me, Bigger Than All Of Us felt like a really fitting title because going clubbing has made me hyperaware of how special the community that’s gathered around our band and our whole Anjunafamily is. To me, that is the coolest thing that we've done – not something we created. We’ve watched it grow over the years, and it really is bigger than all of us. 

Speaking of the community you’ve built, you launched a platform for fans to share their stories about what belonging to the Anjunafamily and its music has meant to them. Have any submissions particularly struck you?

Grant: There is one in the radio show this week about someone who went through chemotherapy. That story – without wanting to take away from that particular story – is not uncommon. We hear from people who’ve got through tough times in life partly through the help of our music, which is an incredible thing to almost accidentally be a part of. 

There’s the website, but we’ve heard those kinds of stories for years, and on the one hand, it is something we're a part of. On the other hand, we’re told these stories, and the music and community of Above & Beyond are so significant for these individuals, yet we're not aware of it until we hear it. It's overwhelming. 

McGuinness: You hear stories of such bravery and things people have had to put up with, and they link their ability to get through it to us. I just feel humbled by that. 

Grant: It's an interesting dynamic because a lot of fans will say, "Your music saved my life," and I always feel the need to say, "You saved your own life, but I’m glad you found our music," because it's the person that does the work, but it's very touching that they feel compelled to tell us. 

Siljamäki: Before Above & Beyond, I was making pop music, and I think one of the things that hit me quite early on was Tony, Justine, and Zoë writing really honestly about stuff that has happened to them. I felt like it took real bravery to be open about your struggles in a song. Like Tony wrote “Alone Tonight” [from Tri-State]. You have this dark song, but when you're singing it with a lot of other people, you can relate to them. 

Now, we’re encouraging our Anjunafamily to do something similar. You can be open about these things, and it's pretty amazing when you realize what you might be going through is not just your thing. A lot of other people are going through similar things, and I think that is a really powerful thing in the community and a really central theme to what we do. 

You'll come face-to-face with your community again this summer, on your first North American amphitheater tour since 2018, which features the new live show you debuted at Coachella in April.

Siljamäki: One of the amazing things about not just doing EPs and doing an actual album is that it's given us a reason to refresh our show. We had a trial run at Coachella and, for me, one of the coolest shows we recently did was at Ultra in Miami because we played the amphitheater. One of the things we love about amphitheaters is how people can see each other. It creates a communal vibe that's perfect for what we do. We'll be bringing the show, so we just need people to hopefully come check it out! 

Tickets to the tour are available on Above & Beyond's website and Bigger Than All Of Us, out now via Anjunabeats. Buy it on Beatport.