As we all recovering from our Ultra South Africa hangover, we bringing you some new music to help soothe it. South African audiences were privileged as Above and Beyond played their new track with Armin van Buuren to a live crowd for the very first time. The track was officially released on Friday the first of March but was played by Armin at ASOT900 in Utrecht the weekend before. It the first collaboration between Armin and the British trio and to say that it was long over due would be an understatement. What makes it even more special is that no one was expecting this and it was a very nice surprise to say the least. We have the extended edition for you on the blog today as we can't get enough of it.
With just 2 weeks to go till Ultra South Africa 2019, we bring you our artist feature on the Monday Choon. There's no denying Above & Beyond's cult status in the electronic music world, their hit track Sun & Moon still makes the hair on the back of many necks stand every time it plays. Their weekly podcast ABGT has hundreds of thousands of streams and their sellout shows just go to prove what a phenom they are and why we are so so lucky to see them in SA, performing at our premier music festival. Today's track Distorted Truth was released last week but was first played by them at their ABGT300 show in Hong Kong last year. It's a bit more up tempo than their previous track release Flying by Candle Light but has just the right beat to get you excited for their set. The track has all the key Above & Beyond elements, the beats, the build up and uplifting tempo's. It's simply brilliant in our books and will be a firm favourite for you too.
In celebration of after hearing that Above & Beyond being announced in the phase 2 line up for Ultra South Africa next year, we decided it would be fitting to have one of their tracks as our featured song of the week. Always, with vocals by Zoe Johnston was debuted at ABGT 300 in the USA last year and has since become quite a favourite with fans of the uplifting trance genre, with it being quite a mellow track, the guys at Above & Beyond decided to up the bpm a bit by making a Club Mix just got ABGT350, the music video for the track is quite spectacular as its shot high up in snow capped mountains but we have the song live from their ABGT350 show in Hong Kong. Do enjoy!
For many, today is going to be spent enjoying their 4th day off but for the few who are working to keep the economy ticking over, not to worry we have some good music to keep you company. Today we feature a track from legends in the game, Above & Beyond. It's taken from their latest album "Common Ground" which was debut to the world at their massive ABGT250 event which was held to a sell out performance at the Gorge Amphitheater in Washington State last year. The featured track is Naked, which has Justine Suissa on the vocals. As with most of their music, it's very uplifting trance, mellow but with high notes that elevate ones state of mind when listening to it. It's one of my favourites from the album and I'm sure you guys will enjoy it too.
UK based Trance DJ Ilan Bluestone is known for his uplifting trance beats and is widely featured on many shows, most notably Above and Beyond's ABGT. Ilan's latest offering is Malacosta which is on the Anjuna Beats Label and was mashed up quite brilliantly during Above and Beyond's set at Ultra Miami a few weeks ago with their song "A Peace of Mind" which features the vocals of Zoe Johnston. Unfortunately that mashup isn't released yet and I'm not sure if it ever will but we do have Malacosta for you this week which is equally brilliant.
It's been 2 weeks since Miami was taken over by the sounds of Electronic, Dance and House music, Miami Music Week 2017 proved to be as usual, bigger and better than the years before and headlining this international acclaimed music event was Ultra Music Festival which has been a firm favourite for many fans of the genre's over the years. Ultra really has been the one music festival that set standards for every other one around the globe and since grown and now finds itself being taken around the world in various countries.
Coming back to the Miami event, the line up was endless and the stages were insane to say the least. You practically had the top 100 DJ's in the world all in one place over one weekend, playing their hottest and latest tracks to crowds of thousands. The lighting and pyrotechnics display that go into the event is next level crazy, even though it is already one of the most highly rated music events in the world, the organizers still go out of their way to make every year bigger and better. It saw a host of new releases from various DJ's and the sets at Ultra are always worth a watch, UMF have released all of the DJ sets to the respective DJ's, all of which were uploaded in HD and we have as link to all of them for you to watch! I've selected some of my favourites for you to watch below.
Its a moody start to the week and generally everyone is on a low after the weekend so today's featured track is the new one Above & Beyond which comes off their latest album "We all we need". Featuring the soothing vocals of Gemma Hayes, the song remains uplifting and has the mellow beats we're used to from the trance legends. The official music video was just released 2 days ago as well.
We're being spoilt in South Africa of recent when it comes to the calibre of EDM artists that are visiting our shores, shortly after Ultra South Africa, Showtek graced us just last week and this week saw Above & Beyond play out to sell out shows in both Cape Town and Johannesburg. There's no doubting that A&B are one of the biggest names in Trance Music for the past 5 years, whether its classics like Sun and Moon or their live, unplugged concert in Porchester Hall, the Swedish Group have gathered a world wide following. Their weekly podcast, Above & Beyond Group Therapy (ABGT) has also grown in leaps as their 100th episode was celebrated at a sell out show in Madisson Square Gardens. This weeks choon is a mash up of their hit song "We're all we need" with Talemono's Overload, done by none other than himself, Armin van Buuren, the video is taken from his ASOT700 in Utrecht.
British DJ Ilan Bluestone seems to be making a name for himself on the biggest stage of dance music of recent. Besides having a number of remixes out, his own work is getting much credit. Just recently he was invited by the guys from Above & Beyond to take part in their 100th show special of Trance Around the World at Madisson Square Gardens. We featured one of his remixed tracks a few weeks back and today we bring to you his latest single, Atlantis.
