Paul van Dyk — For An Angel (1998 E-Werk Club Mix)

Paul van Dyk's original 'For An Angel' shipped in 1994 as an austere Berlin techno cut. It took four more years and the E-Werk Club Mix to reveal what the melody was actually for. That two-note lead, the shimmering breakdown, and the almost cinematic silence before the drop became the grammar every uplifting producer from Ferry Corsten to Above & Beyond built on for the next decade.

Van Dyk wrote the melody at his mother's flat in East Berlin in late 1993 on a borrowed Roland W-30, a year after the Wall had come down. The original 1994 MFS release — subtitled 'Original Mix' and running at 130 BPM — was a spartan Berlin-techno record that sold modestly. Van Dyk himself later called it 'unfinished, an idea I hadn't yet worked out.'

The 1998 E-Werk Club Mix (named after Berlin's legendary E-Werk power-station-turned-club, where Van Dyk was a resident) is a wholesale rebuild. The tempo climbs to 138 BPM, the lead is doubled with a Virus A saw, a new counter-melody enters at the second breakdown, and the mixdown was cut at Metropolis Studios London with engineer Danton Supple. The signature move — a full six-bar drop-out where only a filtered high-hat remains — was inserted at the last minute; Van Dyk has said in interviews he 'wasn't sure people would still be dancing when the beat came back.'

Reached #21 on the UK Singles Chart on Deviant Records in October 1998 and stayed in club charts across Europe for the remainder of the year. It was Voted 'Anthem of the Year' by DJ Mag readers in 1998, beating Sash!, Robert Miles and BT. Pete Tong made it his Essential New Tune on Radio 1 on 4 September 1998 — the moment it crossed from clubs into mainstream UK consciousness.

• UK Singles Chart#21
• German Dance Chart#1
• DJ Mag Anthem of the Year 1998#1

• 1:12The two-note lead enters — the melody every uplifter has since imitated.
• 3:20The six-bar silence. Only filtered hats. Room holds its breath.
• 3:44The kick returns, doubled.

• Original Mix (1994)

  The austere Berlin-techno original on MFS; almost unrecognisable.

• 1998 E-Werk Club Mix

  The definitive version. 138 BPM, six-bar drop-out.

• 1998 E-Werk Radio Mix

  3:45 edit that carried the record onto Radio 1 daytime.

• 2009 PvD Remix

  Van Dyk's own harder rework for his Volume album.

'For An Angel' is the record every subsequent uplifting-trance producer has quietly modelled a breakdown on. Ferry Corsten cited it as the direct blueprint for 'Out Of The Blue'; Above & Beyond's Jono Grant has called the E-Werk Mix 'the single most influential trance record ever made from a songwriting perspective.' Van Dyk closes with it to this day — the 2009 PvD Remix at Cream Amnesia is on YouTube and worth the eight minutes.

• Van Dyk was 26 when he wrote the original melody; he still plays a variant of the lead patch on his current live rig.
• The E-Werk in Berlin closed in 1997 — the mix was named after the club a year after it had shut.
• Danton Supple, who engineered the mixdown, went on to produce Coldplay's X&Y.