Pat Van Dyke

A native of Jersey City, New Jersey, Pat Van Dyke—also known as PVD—works as a producer, composer, and multi-instrumentalist who relies most heavily on drums to shape his rhythmic sensibility. His original material fuses jazz, funk, and beats into quasi-electronica instrumentals marked by a pronounced retro character, drawing on vintage keys alongside acoustic elements such as horns and woodwinds.

Issued under the PVD moniker, his first full-length release, Down for the Get Down, came out in 2005 and centered on instrumentals with a more pronounced soul-jazz character. He later joined forces with DJ John Robinson, and the pair delivered the album All the Way Live in 2009. Still recording as PVD, he linked up with rapper 8thW1 for the Lux DeVille EP in 2010, the same year he issued the collection PVD Breaks, Vol. 1, consisting of original, royalty-free breakbeats. The LP Sounds Like This! followed in early 2011 and included trumpet contributions from Rich Polatchek along with woodwinds from Bryan Beninghove. A year afterward, the drummer-composer put out PVD Breaks, Vol. 2. A complete version of Lux DeVille surfaced in 2013 together with Lux DeVille: The Instrumentals, and later that year he released Technicolor Hi-Fi under his full name, Pat Van Dyke.

Van Dyke rejoined Robinson for 2014’s Modern Vintage Instrumentals and then issued the Lux DeVille Live at the Loft EP. Working again under his given name, he brought out Right on Time in spring 2015 and Technicolor Hi-Fi Remixes that summer. Philadelphia’s Record Breakin’ Music put out his Let the Horns Blow EP in September 2016, a four-track set of funk and beats. Between full-length projects, Van Dyke maintained a consistent flow of standalone singles, covers, and remixes, among them his September 2016 reworking of “Paper Proclamation” by Suff Daddy featuring Mayer Hawthorne. His third official solo album, Hello, Summer, appeared in 2018 and featured contributions from Zac Colwell on woodwinds, Peter Lin on trombone, and David Stolarz on Wurlitzer and organ.