Above & Beyond Keep Their Eye On The Basics As Their Audience Continues To Grow

(huffington post) A year ago, nearly every music website and magazine was publishing trend pieces tracking the explosion of electronic dance music in America. Fast-forward to the present, and nearly every general interest magazine and website is publishing similar stories, with the added clarity of hindsight.

But for Above & Beyond, a trance DJ and production trio known for melodic compositions and a deeply personal connection with their fans, none of this is news. Jono Grant, Tony McGuinness, and Paavo Siljamäki have been creating dance music for over a decade, releasing three studio albums, two remix albums and countless compilations and singles along the way. The cumulative affect: a devoted following that numbers in the millions.

Festival-goers and office-earbud ravers alike are familiar with the group, whose Trance Around the World radio show draws tens of millions of listeners each week. The trio is coming to New York this Labor Day weekend for two sets at Electric Zoo, where they'll headline both their own Group Therapy Stage (following acts like Mat Zo and Ferry Corsten) on Friday and the main stage on Saturday.

HuffPost Entertainment caught up with Grant and Siljamäki in two separate interviews that have been edited together below. Among the topics: how EDM can get smart again (Grant says it has been "dumbed down"), why trance doesn't suffer from the same problems as pop house and dubstep and whether pop DJs' days are numbered.

In what ways have you seen your fan base grow over the past few years? Do you feel as though trance -- which is in some ways the world's most popular genre of music -- is growing at the same pace as, say, pop house?
Paavo Siljamäki (PS): Pop house and dub house have taken the place of...

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Axwell & Ingrosso MAD at Hardwell

(Stoneyroads)  You know the deal, throw around a few ‘free’ tracks and score some Facebook ‘likes’, pretty much the norm’ for todays web 2.0 producers.

The only hitch? When they’re bootlegs of Swedish House Mafia doofi (a collection of doofus’) Axwell and Ingrosso.

It was Dutch progressive DJ Hardwell that made the mistake of releasing a ‘trilogy’ of bootlegs reaching all the way back to 2010 that set the big shot personalities into action attacking him on Twitter.

You’d think they’d be some humbleness when it comes to other globally recognised producers specifically choosing your tracks to remix/edit/bootleg but instead both Axwell and Ingrosso graded Hardwells actions as “the lowest i’ve seen”.

This comes from DJs accused of playing mix CDs instead of performing live and collectively having over 3 million likes on Facebook.

Eric Prydz also jumped on the bandwagon jokingly adding his 2c “If you ‘like’ my Facebook Fan Page @Axwell & @Sebingrosso will come play for free in your living room”

The whole thing is a bit of a beat up and I get where the guys are coming from but the maturity shown from who could be considered professionals is a bit embarrassing. It’s not as if he made the bootlegs recently to leverage the popularity of SHM, some were created all the way back in 2010.

It was good to see Hardwell bounce back and take the pack offline and also offer up some positive wisdom.. “It’s all about the love for music, that’s the only thing that matters”

Maybe it wasn’t such a bad thing Swedish House (Thug) Mafia broke up?

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