German electronic music guru Paul Van Dyk is set to follow up the success of 2000's Out There and Back with his first-ever mix CD this fall. The artist, who has reluctantly become a figurehead for trance music, is in the process of putting together a two-disc set called Politics of Dancing (due October 23rd on Ministry of Sound), an album he says will maintain the kind of progressive spacey epic known as the "Paul Van Dyk sound."

"I never did a DJ mix because I didn't think I could quite bring across the atmosphere of a club," Van Dyk says. "This is why my approach to this mix is a bit different as well. It's some sort of merge between a remix album, an artist's album and a DJ mix. A lot of tracks are specially re-mixed for that CD, by me. So [when] there is a track that I really, really like and it doesn't fit on the CD, I just make a remix."

Politics of Dancing will feature a range of tunes the German DJ tinkered with, by the likes of Underworld , the Guardian of the Earth and Van Dyk himself.

"This is very important part of what I'm doing," he says of the mix CD, "I've been DJing for ten years and I think it's time for it."

To coincide with the release, Van Dyk is currently lining up a ten-city U.S. tour.

He is also working on his next album of original material, which is due out next year.

JOLIE LASH
(August 10, 2001)