Group Therapy with Above and Beyond

There are DJs who can rock a party, a club, a festival. And there are acts that can write songs that will bring out the goose bumps in you. But there’s only one group that can do both: Above & Beyond.

For their latest (ad)venture, hosted to mark their 250th Group Therapy radio show, Above & Beyond had crystallised something that lay at the heart of everything they’ve achieved over their 17 years together. From developing that groundbreaking radio show to touring the world’s best clubs and most illustrious venues; from establishing a thriving, multi-artist label to building a peerless catalogue of artist albums; from creating iconic dance anthems to curating soulful acoustic rerubs, one thing stands out. That is: Above & Beyond have carved out a unique space in music and culture, one that reaches far beyond their electronic roots. In so doing, Jono, Paavo and Tony have created something special: a common ground where all sorts of people and ideas can come together. Celebration, kinship, community – it’s the A&B way.

Presenting, then, Common Ground. The trio’s fourth electronic album is the follow-up to 2015’s Grammy-nominated We Are All We Need, and comes in the wake of sell-out shows at totemic venues ranging from Colorado’s Red Rocks Amphitheatre to London’s O2. It features a quartet of guest vocalists, a couple of them longstanding members of the family, a couple of them valued newcomers. And it’s an album born from everything they’ve done so far, most recently the glorious Gorge happening and the band’s 2016 orchestral tour in support of their second acoustic album.