Paul van Dyk has today unleashed a new album: Music Rescues Me. The 14-track LP is van Dyk’s ninth studio album overall, following up 2017’s From Then On. The new project is dripping in euphoric chord progressions and uplifting melodies that have endeared trance music lovers to Paul van Dyk’s music over the past two and a half decades. van Dyk gave fans a taste of the album with the release of the title single back in September: Music Rescues Me feat. Plumb.
Today, he’s unveiled the 14-track masterpiece in full.
The release of Music Rescues Me comes just 14 months after van Dyk’s previous album From Then On (released in October 2017). Stimulus driven by his recuperation from the now-well-documented events of spring 2016 has had the profoundest of effects on van Dyk’s life-view. That has been expressed most clearly through his professional work, taking the form of a tap-wide-open creative stream. Telegraphing Paul’s developmental, progressing and to-the-future outlook, it’s one that’s echoed by the vibrant state of the music scene in which he operates.
Paul shared some words about the direction of Music Rescues Me:
“Though it might have been its seed, this new album is not about music bringing one person back from the brink. Its theme reaches beyond that. This is about music’s ability to open us up, to stimulate mental imagery, to unlock or bring back memories. It’s about its often hard-to-fathom capacity to support us, to get us through our tougher or more challenging times, as well as soundtracking the good ones, and making them even better. This, to me, goes beyond the mere ‘inspirational’. This is something else. That music can ‘unlock’ us, allow us to access emotions and places our mind might not otherwise go to is nothing less than extraordinary. It’s both force and a gift. I feel that’s a big part of what keeps it so magical for me – indeed for all of us. So this album is a celebration of this most mysterious, impalpable and wonderful aspects of music’s nature”.
Alluding to the album’s title, van Dyk clarified:
“The ‘Me’ refers to ‘you, me, us – everyone’. ‘Rescue’ means less ‘save’, but more ‘liberate’ or ‘free’. My greatest aspiration for this release is that people – either now, or in years to come – listening to ‘Music Rescues Me’ will find that one of its tracks elevates, alleviates, opens them up, or takes them out of themselves. That’s the point at which I’ll consider it a success”.
For the new LP, a number of From Then On’s co-producers have been invited back to the studio with Paul. Alex M.O.R.P.H., James Cottle, Jordan Suckley and Tristan D (under his new Delta One guise) are some of those who’ve returned to Berlin to write follow-up tracks for Music Rescues Me. With even deeper roots in the PvD universe, there are also vocal contributions from Sue McLaren (‘Lights’/’We Come Together’) and Plumb (‘I Don’t Deserve You’). In addition to his frequent collaborators, van Dyk has also included features from artists that he’s worked with for the first time, on this new album:
“Alan Wyse, Steve Deekay, Saad Ayub, Rafael Osmo, Project 8, Lostly, Chris Bekker – these are musicians from around the world who, week-in, week-out, we see lighting up the VONYC forums. The producers who’ve really risen in estimation for me. Sound-wise, each one has their own area and represents a different sub-style within our shared field. It’s these shades, grades & tones, meshed with my own, that open up a whole world of new musical angles for this, my ninth album”.
Music Rescues Me comes at a fortuitous time, when trance music has been thrusted back into the spotlight of the electronic music scene. Mixmagannounced trance’s rebirth in their profile of Paul late last year & Insomniac, the world’s biggest dance music promoter, even hosts an all trance festival – Dreamstate – which has made its way to Southern California, San Francisco, Mexico, London, New York and Melbourne in the past year alone. van Dyk recently performed at Dreamstate SoCal outside of LA, this past November.
Paul van Dyk celebrated the new LP at an album-listening event at the iconic London club Printworks in October, and recently completed a 11-date headlining tour of the US. Today, he’s wrapping up the US tour with an album-release show at Avant Gardner in New York City. There’s no sign of slowing down from one of the most prolific artists in the history of electronic music.
