Institution
Anjunabeats — Definition
Anjunabeats is the British record label founded in 2000 by Jono Grant, Tony McGuinness and Paavo Siljamäki — the three members of Above & Beyond. It became the home of the more progressive, melodic, songwriter-oriented wing of classic trance, releasing early records by OceanLab, Andy Moor, Super8 & Tab and Mat Zo, and quietly out-lasting most of its 2000s-era peers.
Anjunabeats is the reason the phrase 'trance family' still means something a decade after the genre stopped being commercially dominant. Its 'Anjunabeats Volume' compilation series, launched in 2003, is a decent parallel history of classic trance from a distinctly British-progressive perspective — less peak-time euphoria, more melodic depth.
Founded in 2000 by Jono Grant, Paavo Siljamäki and Tony McGuinness — the trio who record as Above & Beyond — the label was set up to release their own material and grew into the main institutional home of British melodic trance. Its A&R signature is a preference for restraint: fewer supersaws, more piano and guitar, and toplines written as songs rather than hooks.
The Anjunadeep offshoot, launched in 2005, extended that logic downward in tempo and became one of the more commercially durable deep-house labels of the following decade. Taken together the two imprints are the clearest example of a classic-era trance label surviving the genre's decline by evolving rather than retreating.