by John Bush
From early Berlin techno and house through to progressive trance, producer/DJ Paul van Dyk has soundtracked the German electronic dance scene ever since he moved to the city and began mixing in 1988. A native of a German town near Frankfurt, van Dyk first heard house music on the radio during the mid-80s. Soon he was experimenting with a rudimentary turntable setup, and after hitting Berlin, he gigged around the city. By 1991, he had appeared at the legendary Tresor club; he later set up his own E-Werk club, and debuted on record as Visions of Shiva, with fellow trance wizard Cosmic Baby. He remixed for New Order, Humate, Sven V?th, and others, then signed to the German MFS Records for his first album, 1994s 45 RPM. By the midpoint of the 1990s, van Dyk had become a globe-trotting DJ and remixer. His second album, Seven Ways, resulted in British and German dance chart entries for the singles Beautiful Place, Forbidden Fruit, and Words. While both of his albums were issued in America during 1998, van Dyk added a remix collection (Perspective) and mix album (Vorsprung Dyk Technik) to his discography. 2000 saw the release of the single Tell Me Why (The Riddle), the album Out There and Back, and the EP We Are Alive. As a follow-up to global club dates in support of those releases, van Dyk released another EP, Columbia, in mid-2001. After a relatively quiet 2002 (on the recording front), van Dyk returned with a mix-album/greatest-hits/DVD (Global), the soundtrack to a film (Zurdo), and a new production album (Reflections). He released the second volume of his Politics of Dancing mix album series in 2005 and returned with another studio album, In Between, in 2007.