VONYC Sessions

One of the worlds longest running and most popular electronic music programs from a true pioneer of dance music.

Paul van Dyk’s

Born in Eisenhüttenstadt, Brandenburg, Germany, he began his musical career at the Berlin club Turbine in 1991. When van Dyk was born, Eisenhüttenstadt was in the German Democratic Republic, so he had to smuggle music cassettes from abroad to to be able to listen to the music of that time. That’s when Paul started making song mixes for his friends. When the Berlin Wall fell Paul was able to flourish as a musician. He started at Turbine. It was at this club where a friend suggested that he continue mixing after hearing some of his mixes on cassette, and that was how he started his career. His first production was a collaboration with Cosmic Baby (using the moniker Visions of Shiva) which was released in 1992. The following year, Paul was able to gain some recognition, while working at the legendary nightclub, E-Werk in Berlin, for his remix of “Love Stimulation” by artist Humate. Paul released his first album in 1993, which was titled 45 RPM. By 1997 Paul had already been able to gain quite a bit of fame as a DJ and thanks to his second album, Seven Ways, he was able to establish himself as a pioneer of the trance genre. Seven Ways was the first hit that “PvD” had in the United Kingdom thanks to the singles “Forbidden Fruit”, “Seven Ways” and “Words” as these songs were heard in the largest British clubs during the superclub phenomenon. in said nation. At this time “PvD” commented: “When they deduced that I was German, it was already too late!” In 1998 45RPM went on sale in the United Kingdom and reached number one in sales. Van Dyk produced the remix of “For an Angel” titled “1998 E-Werk remix” to celebrate the popularity of 45RPM and in honor of the club which by then had closed its doors. “For An Angel” is widely considered one of the first epic trance songs and captured the essence of the emerging genre, melodic trance. The song was also considered the second best electronic music song of the last millennium. He is also recognized for his conviction against drugs, which earned him even though it was thought that it would distance him from his fans, on the contrary this position managed to get several clients to place the logo “No Pills, Pure PvD” Pure PvD). Thanks to “For an Angel” fame, Paul became the resident DJ at the Gatecrasher Club (part of the Sheffield franchise). In a statement that surprised many, Paul declared his total rejection of drugs and although some hoped this would alienate him from his fans, this move caused several Gatecrasher regulars to start wearing shirts with the logo “No Pills, Pure PvD.” ” (Not pills, Pure PvD). In 1999 (the same year that the aforementioned shirts were born) the Vandit Records label was formed in which Paul van Dyk was able to obtain a majority of shares and also in that year the album Vorsprung Dyk Technik: The Remix Collection was released, which sold more of 60,000 copies in the United Kingdom. PvD released his third album (recorded in a studio) titled Out There and Back which included the single “Tell Me Why (The Riddle)” on which he collaborated with Saint Etienne. In 2001 van Dyk released the album The Politics of Dancing, in the following year 2002 he released his album Zurdo which served as the soundtrack of the Mexican film of the same name. After a long tour in 2003 he released his Global DVD. That same year, Paul produced his album Reflections (inspired by his travels through Africa) which featured a collaboration with Hemstock & Jennings titled “Nothing but You”, a song that was used in EA’s game Need For Speed Underground 2. Games. In 2005, van Dyk’s most recent album, The Politics of Dancing 2, was released and he also released the single titled “The Other Side.” Paul van Dyk has become an internationally famous DJ, in demand from Hong Kong to Los Angeles. Paul often gets involved in politics taking advantage of his fame. He was one of the first DJs to take part in the “America Rocks the Vote” campaign in 2004 and has been seen wearing a “Stop the War” t-shirt. Paul currently uses two MacBook Pros running Ableton Live plus 2 synthesizers; which is said to give more energy to the events. This method has given him the ability to create mixes on the spot instead of having them already recorded. In a 2005 DJmag poll, Paul van Dyk was named #1 DJ in the world, ending DJ Tiësto’s three-year reign. Again in 2006 he continues to be the DJ at the top of the magazine’s list, chosen by a majority of votes from 229 countries around the world. To date, PvD continues to bring trance to different levels of innovation. He collaborated in 2008 on the soundtrack of the video game Mirror’s Edge on the track “Still alive” performed by Lisa Miskovsky,