Five For The Funk: Paul Van Dyk (Politics Of Dancing)

Photo: Paul Van Dyk

As one of the first true superstar DJs, Paul van Dyk is without doubt one of the most notorious selectors in the world.

Initially breaking out as a trance DJ and producer in the early nineties, more recent times have seen him broaden his scope and launch into electronic dance music as a whole, with his record sales now numbering into the millions, and that's before we mention his run of world's top DJ accolades along the way.

His Politics of Dancing compilation series will soon see its third incarnation, and in typical form its crammed with the kind of acerbic beats and melodic prowess that he's been regularly bringing to the biggest festival stages and clubbing meccas on the planet.

We caught up with him ahead of his arrival at Ministry Of Sound on May 1st to find out which five tracks from the compilation he's been spinning the most.

Paul van Dyk Feat. Sue McLaren 'Lights'

Sue's voice I find completely unforgettable. She has a lyrical and vocal infiltration that always gets me. The lyrics to ‘Lights’ are metaphorical and figurative. They’re also quite wistful and haunting.

So, with the production, I needed to make sure it was well balanced and that none of the atmosphere was lost. It sounds cooler and quite harmonic when you first listen but in the lower end there’s some real PvD pump happening! I played this at the Ultra Music Festival in Miami last month and it was the biggest track of the night.

Mino Safy 'Around The Garden' (Paul van Dyk Remix)

‘Around The Garden’ was first out last summer. I loved what Mino had going on in the track, but any which way I tried, I couldn’t make it work in my sets. So I took the only course of action available!

In the remix I streamlined it a bit, made it a lot clubbier and it’s now one of those tracks that you just know will drop hard in the Ministry box.

This is a ‘channeling’ track to the method of the first two ‘Politics Of Dancing’ releases. Maybe closer to ‘how we did it before’, where I would remix someone else’s track and then have it as an exclusive for the album. There was a part of me that wanted to use Mino’s track to further blur the line between The Politics Of Dancing 3 being an artist album and mix compilation.  

Paul van Dyk Feat. Genix 'For You'

Genix has this ‘outta nowhere’ thing about him recently, but I’ve been playing his productions for almost a decade. We’ve put out quite a few of his solo releases and co-productions over the last year or so, so he’s very much part of our VANDIT family.

He’s always had a different approach to the trance sound, which is unique, and some would say impossible to pigeon-hole. That is actually a great production characteristic – it leaves things so open, and that’s what made this collaboration so interesting for me. 

Neptune Project Vs. The Noble Six 'Time'

At VANDIT, we had our eye on both Neptune Project and The Noble Six for quite a while. So when ‘Time’ landed in the demo inbox we’d basically hit a double win.

You can really feel that heart and soul has gone into Dan, Jules and Andrew’s music, especially where their melodies are concerned. If you want to check more of what Neptune Project in particular do, they played a guest mix on VONYC Sessions 450 this month. You can check it here

Paul van Dyk Feat Johnny McDaid 'Home' 

People are always expecting to hear ‘For An Angel’ in my DJ sets. I never stopped playing it and I’m not saying you won’t hear it come May the 1st. In its production though, ‘Home’ gets the slightly bigger reaction these days. It has all the power, drive and energy of ‘Angel’, but Johnny McDaid’s song just tips it over the edge. I’ll never get tired of hearing it, playing it or seeing the reaction to it. 

Catch Paul van Dyk in action at Ministry of Sound on May 1st. Get your tickets here.