Paul van Dyk

Matthias Paul (born 16 December 1971), known professionally as Paul Van Dyk is a German DJ, record producer and musician.

A trance producer starting in the early 1990s, van Dyk quickly achieved popularity with his remix of "Love Stimulation" by Humate on the record label MFS in 1993 and with his hit single "For an Angel".

Van Dyk is an avid trance lover to this day.

He indicated in an interview that he ended up giving himself the Belgian-sounding stage name because he used to incorporate many Belgian dance records into his DJ sets in the early 1990s.

Van Dyk is currently the host of "Vonyc Sessions with Paul" on Dash Radio.

Paul Van Dyk grew up in East Berlin in a single parent household; his father left him and his mother when he was four years old.

While living there, he worked as a broadcast technician and began training to become a carpenter.

Paul Van Dyk claims his musical education came from radio.

Due to a lack of record stores to buy music from, van Dyk secretly listened to Western radio stations such as Radio in the American Sector and Sender Freies Berlin and mixtapes occasionally smuggled into the country and copied among school friends.

The first album he acquired was Organisation by Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, of which he said, "It was extremely influential. Early electronic, but also melodies and poppy elements, the general imprint of what later came for me in music."

Shortly before the fall of the Berlin Wall, van Dyk and his mother were given permission to leave East Germany and moved to Hamburg to live with his aunt.

In 1990, van Dyk moved back to Berlin.

Van Dyk also remixed a well-known early-1990s track, "The Age of Love", in 1997.

His first appearance as a DJ was in the club Tresor in March 1991.

After several more dates, he was given the chance to perform at Andre'Hoche's Dubmission parties in the Turbine club, together with the young resident DJ Kid Paul.

With Cosmic Baby, he collaborated as The Visions of Shiva.

Their single "Perfect Day" was released by the Berlin independent label MFS, run by English expatriate producer Mark Reeder and manager Torsten Jurk.

In February 1993, van Dyk and Kid Paul hosted an installment of the weekly three-hour "HR3 Clubnight" radio show, performing for a nationwide audience on German radio.

The second and final Visions of Shiva single "How Much Can You Take?"

was released, and van Dyk and Cosmic went their separate musical ways.

By late summer, Paul released his first DJ-mix compilation "X-Mix-1 – the MFS Trip" and remixed Humate's trance hymn "Love Stimulation".

In 1994, van Dyk released The Green Valley EP, Pump This Party and Emergency 911.

Meanwhile, MFS acquired many remixes for Paul.

MFS label owner Mark Reeder's close friendship with artists such as New Order gave van Dyk the opportunity to mix the track "Spooky" from the Republic album.

He recorded his debut LP 45 RPM with Johnny Klimek and VOOV.

Seven Ways established van Dyk as a trance pioneer and was van Dyk's first real success in Britain.

Seven Ways was voted the No. 1 album by readers of DJ Magazine.

In early 1997, van Dyk began collaborating with U.S. music producer BT.

Together, they produced tracks such as "Flaming June", "Forbidden Fruit" and "Namistai".

The singles "Forbidden Fruit" and "Beautiful Place" did not cause a great impact at first but, with the release of Seven Ways and "Words" appearing at the height of the British superclub phenomenon, van Dyk's own material began to attract attention.

"By the time they realised I was a German, it was too late!"

van Dyk said.

In 1998, 45 RPM was re-released in the UK and in the US.

To mark the event, and in homage to the defunct E-Werk, van Dyk released a remix of "For An Angel".

Van Dyk took up a residency at Sheffield's Gatecrasher and declared himself anti-drugs, which led to home-made "No E, Pure PvD" T-shirts, also a sly note to journalists that his surname contained no "E".

In 1998, Paul remixed Matt Laws/Binary Finary's famous "1998" single, which was a successful version that took Binary Finary to the top of the German Dance charts.

In mid-1998, van Dyk left MFS Records and took a controlling share in the new label Vandit Records.

Van Dyk was the first artist to receive a Grammy Award nomination in the newly added category of Best Dance/Electronic album for his 2003 release Reflections.

He was the first DJ to be named number one by Mixmag in 2005.

By 2008, he had sold over 3 million albums worldwide.