Paul van Dyk Brings 'Evolution' To India
I think that’s the special thing about electronic music. Goa, Delhi, Mumbai are just as important as New York, Paris, London or Berlin.
The scene was set at Shiro, New Delhi. Paul van Dyk was bringing his Evolution tour to India and this was the first stop. Judging from the people anxiously waiting under the benign eye of a giant Buddha, it was time to blow the roof off. Literally. A wooden tile actually fell off the high ceiling later due to bass reverberations. Evolution, his studio album, is scheduled for release in March and this worldwide tour serves to give fans an introduction. “It’s at my latest point of evolution. I don’t know where it ends so I don’t know whether I’m halfway or at the middle,” van Dyk laughs. “Electronic music started as this small sub-culture and it’s the biggest music culture in the world now. It’s my take at what electronic music should sound like.”
India has always been quite partial to PvD, and it’s reciprocated. The superstar DJ has made multiple trips to the sub-continent over the last few years, opening doors for the influx of big names that have followed. There's even a dog named after him in Mumbai. Paul the Dog used to shadow Paul the DJ at gig venue, so PvD asked everyone to look after him. They did, and named him after his musical benefactor.
“The last time I was here in a city was Mumbai four years ago. I played at the Sunburn festival in Goa which was absolutely phenomenal,” he reminisces. “I think that’s the special thing about electronic music. Goa, Delhi, Mumbai are just as important as New York, Paris, London or Berlin.”
Van Dyk was so affected by India that he started supporting an NGO called Akanksha, which helps underprivileged kids by mobilizing funds and resources. "When I first came to Mumbai ... I've seen a kind of poverty in slums in Africa, in South America, all over the place. When I came here, I was shocked that a country with such a rich culture and history had that [and] allows that to happen in the way it is. While I was here I spent three days getting in touch through the German Chancellor to Akanksha and started to support them," he explains. His work here was so satisfying personally that he started a project out of Berlin called Rückenwind. "I came back to Berlin and I saw – on a completely different scale – but a lot of issues and problems as well. Rückenwind is doing something similar, which is helping kids that come from unfortunate backgrounds."
After talking about his new album and travels, we couldn't help but ask van Dyk if he had heard about the DJ talent show search Simon Cowell is scheduled to launch later this year. PvD certainly had. "Well, to be very honest, I’m not a big fan of casting shows. I’m not a fan of casting a vocalist either, but it sort of makes sense because obviously the person can sing and people can judge what the person did in the last two-three minutes. How are you going to judge [the DJ] … how are you going to make it interesting on TV? It just shows that the DJ culture somehow left the boundaries of being a subculture. It’s finally acknowledged as something bigger that."
Consequently, he also suggests it's indicative of the essence of EDM adding, "At the same time, I do not agree with the cheesiness that’s happening around this music as well. I think one of the reasons why electronic music has so many strong followers that really love it, and will not be fans of something else next week, is the fact that there’s a substance to the music. It’s not about a manager making a marketing decision – you should work with that person and we’ll sell more records. It’s about artists having an idea and making something that means something. This is what electronic music is about and we have to be careful not to lose that."
