| Josh Gabriel | |
|---|---|
Josh Gabriel (front) as Gabriel & Dresden at Coachella Festival, Indio, California. April 20, 2006. |
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| Background information | |
| Birth name | Josh Gabriel |
| Origin | San Francisco, CA |
| Genres | Progressive trance Electronica |
| Occupations | DJ, Producer, Remixer |
| Years active | 1988–2008 |
| Labels | Organized Nature Different Pieces, Vandit |
| Associated acts | Gabriel & Dresden, Motorcycle, Andain, Bigtop, Copywrite (rapper) |
| Notable instruments | |
| iMac G5, Logic Pro, Ableton Live [1] | |
Josh Gabriel is an electronic dance music DJ and producer, formerly of Gabriel & Dresden with Dave Dresden.
Contents |
In 1988-89, a 20 year old exchange student from California Institute of the Arts, was living in The Hague in The Netherlands and studying at the Institute of Sonology. Josh Gabriel had already been working with digital music since his high-school days, achieving mastery of the DX7 and TX816 by the age of 17. With an Apple Macintosh Plus, operating system 3, and the earliest of music applications like Mark of the Unicorn’s “Composer” and “Performer”, Josh was already at the bleeding edge. In Holland, Gabriel’s inventor spirit took shape as he wrote a computer application to control samples on an Akai S900 in real-time with a joystick. And the inception for what later became Mixman had been born. Along with electronics whiz Jan Pannis, (Stockhausen’s tech-man) Gabriel and Pannis built an apparatus which converted beams of light coming up off the floor into a Midi Control device and the 20 year old Gabriel dressed in black, wearing white gloves performed his real-time beat-trigger device in the clubs of Amsterdam.
By 1993 Gabriel was doing high-end digital sound editing, design and production in Los Angeles, and finally found a business partner and the journey that was to become Mixman began. Mixman had always been conceived as a hardware device, the “Walkman”, the “Discman”, the “Mixman”… and several proto-types were built. The path to hardware was longer than software and in late 1995 early 1996 the first Mixman application was released to the public. Spin Control, included 8 songs from the San Francisco underground Dance Music scene, that were remixable with only a PC, enough RAM and a proper sound card.
Gabriel's patents for loop-based music remixing are the backbone of industry standard music making software applications used in virtually every producers studio today. By 1999, Mixman had evolved and grown and merged with a larger dot.com. Expanding briefly to the Mac platform and deepening it’s relationship with Record Labels and MTV as well as starting work with Mattel on a controller (eventually became the DM2) -- things looked good. But as happened with many dot.coms the ride got bumpy. In late 2000 Gabriel decided he had had his fill of the corporate life, and decided he wanted to return to “music”. In 2002 Mixman sprung free of the dot.com shackles and returned to independence.
Before he attended music school in Holland and Los Angeles and started experimenting with synthesizers and computers in the early 1980s. At the same time Dave Dresden was a club deejay in a suburb of New York City as well as a renowned US dance music journalist. He became the Music Director of grooveradio.com and met Pete Tong, who asked him to help find music for the Essential Selection.[2] They met at a party being hosted by grooveradio.com at the Miami Winter Music Conference in March 2001. Josh gave Leon Alexander a record, the record was "Wave 3", which Dave then gave to Pete Tong, and he played it on the Essential Selection and also used it for his compilation that same year. Pete gave Dave the opportunity to do a spec mix of New Order and Dave asked Josh to work on it with him. The two joined forces in 2001 and made a name for themselves by creating numerous remixes. In 2002 Gabriel & Dresden released their first single "Lament" (Saw Recordings) in the United States. The duo released numerous singles and number one Billboard hits like "Tracking Treasure Down" and "Dangerous Power"; They also released one self-titled studio album together, Gabriel & Dresden. Josh played the electric bass on Armin van Buuren's single "Zocalo" in which both Dave & Josh produced the sounds.
The duo won the 2007 and 2008 IDMA award for "America's Best DJ". He has achieved 16 Billboard Dance Chart #1 hits as "Gabriel & Dresden", composed music that has appeared on Fox, HBO, NBC and CBS TV shows. Gabriel & Dresden have their own record label, Organized Nature. Gabriel has also invented a new pro-audio web application that will be available to the public in Winter 2009.
The duo finished their last tour with two appearances at the WMC in Miami. They played an incredible 5+ hour set at the Pawn Shop on March 28, 2008 and a closing 1 hour set at the Beatport/Remix Hotel Pool Party at the National Hotel on March 30, 2008 (with visuals provided by VJ Psyberpixie). Josh Gabriel will now be touring solo and focusing more on his solo album due out later in 2008.
"Summit", released in 2007, is the first single from his debut solo album "Eight". Other tracks, "Crosstalk" was originally found in the Toolroom Knights, Vol. 2 compilation mixed by Gabriel & Dresden as well as "Azora" which was found in Renaissance The Master Series Vol. 10 compilation mixed by Dave Seaman. The follow-up single called "Tone Program" was released on September 4, 2008 on Josh Gabriel's new label, "Different Pieces" with a remix by Style of Eye.
Josh Gabriel's debut album is called "Eight" and was released on October 8, 2008 through "Different Pieces". "Eight" refers to the eight different analog synths he used on the album. The title also refers to the date August 8, 2008 (08-08-08), when he finished mastering the album.
Josh is currently finishing up Andain's new album and is also working with vocalist/song writer Meredith Call on a project called "Winter Kills" with the first single "Deep Down" due out in early 2009. Both albums are set for release in 2010. Also his music production will feature on Copywrite (rapper) new album "The Life And Times Of Peter Nelson" in the track known as "Serotonin".
On December 31, 2010, Dave Dresden announced via a photo post on his Facebook page showing himself at a table preparing set lists with Josh that the duo are back together and performing their first reunited set on NYE 2010 in Los Angeles. Fan response was eccentric with "welcome back!". After that the pair proceeded with a reunion tour with their first show in San Francisco, CA on March 4, 2011.
For discography as Gabriel & Dresden, see Gabriel & Dresden discography.
For awards as Gabriel & Dresden, see Gabriel & Dresden Awards / Nominations.