Above & Beyond – Anjunabeats Volume 13

Vol 13 sees further evolution of the Anjuna label family.

Disc 1:

In a similar vein to Vols 11 & 12, 13 starts with a slower first disc, but it moves away from deep house and jumps into mid 2010s prog trance after a warm up house set of ~20 mins. Its pretty standard Beats progressive trance faire, with highlights being the excellent Jaytech cut Inspire and Grum with his storming Shout reinterpretation (which recently saw a melodic house rerub). The rest of the disc is pleasant enough, nothing especially stand out but solid nonetheless. 3.5/5

Disc 2:

Disc 2 is where we begin to see the festival set themes from the last few volumes come into its own, displaying again the quality the label began to regain after a few years lost in the wilderness. Big Bayer track to start off, and cheeky respray by the boys of the classic G&D remix of No One on Earth. Slowed down a bit but with an updated baseline, sounds great over a big soundsystem, if not a little slow for the old timers. Oliver Smith adds a nice festival cut, before Sunny Lax shows up massively -- in retrospect this heralded Sunny lax's second coming, as the quality in the last few years has been sublime from this man. Next a massive update of Luminary, another dancefloor smasher, before decent offerings from A&B (with clear Bayer contribution) and Genix. Alright Now has a great vocal and melody from Justine Suissa, and Omen In The Rain signals Myon's second coming too, free from Shane54, this was the first of many recent bangers the man has been churning out. The rest of the disc is strong, with Higher Love standing out -- I don't usually care much for Seven Lions and his future-step sound, but even though trance purists hate this track, it is a definite crossover banger, and also reflective of the experimental nature of the Beats sounds, which is not always a bad thing. Jason Ross gets another nod with the excellent Valor, before another superb Bluestone remix of A&B. 4.5/5

Top Tracks:

Jaytech - Inspire
Sunny Lax & Aneym – Everything's A Lie
Myon Feat. Alissa Feudo – Omen In The Rain (Myon Club Mix)
Jason Ross – Valor