Paul Van Dyk
Another Way/Avenue
(Mute)
I remember back in the Trance Europe Express series days when Paul Van Dyk dressed and looked like more a punk rocker than a trance guru. His hair was always a different color and every photograph pose I saw of him was some cheesy grin or goofy gesture. Imagine my surprise when I picked up this newer single by him and saw him posed, looking almost pensively off-camera, looking like he could be modeling clothing.
Such is the life of a trance superstar. Five years back or so, trance still wasn't quite a fullblown phenomenon that it is now, with a glut of mix discs hitting the market and every major city around the world getting in on the action in the Global Underground series and in the process making names like John Digweed and Sasha nearly household names.
Enough rambling, though. Let me saw that right off the bat that if you're a fan of trance music by work by any of the above mentioned artists, ATB, or other work by Paul Van Dyk, you should buy this CD right now. Not only is it some of his better work that I've heard in awhile (with a little bit more of a kick to the songs than most of the tracks off his Seven Ways release), but for a very cheap price you get tons of music. In fact, not only are there 6 tracks on the 'single,' but the total time of the disc runs nearly 60 minutes with 5 different versions of "Another Way," as well as two different versions of "Avenue" (including an almost 20 minute megamix of the two songs taking up the last one-third of the disc).
As I said above, this is Van Dyk doing some of his best work today, and not only does he space things out with his trademark trancey sounds, but there's quite a bit more of a thump behind his beats this time around and it makes it even easier to get your body into the groove while dancing to it. It gets a little on the repetitive side after it's all through, but I'd rather have more than less. This is how a CD single release should be done.
Rating: 7.25
