Early years (1988–2000) 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 the Netherlands, 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 its 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.
Gabriel & Dresden (2001–2008) Before he attended music school in the Netherlands 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. 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 No. 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.
Solo years (2008-2010) Josh spent his time off from Gabriel & Dresden starting a label called Different Pieces (via
Armada Music) and working on three different album projects. The first, his 2008 solo album
"Eight" which was named after the amount of analog synthesizers used to record it. He also worked on an album project for Winter Kills, Josh's band project with vocalist
Meredith Call. This yielded the song
"Deep Down" which charted on the
Billboard Hot Dance Club Songs chart and was on Armin Van Buuren's
A State of Trance 2009 year-end compilation. He also produced the debut album for
Andain "You Once Told Me" which finally saw a release in 2012 and spawned a sizable hit with the song, "
Promises (Andain song)", which Gabriel & Dresden remixed in 2011.
Gabriel & Dresden reunion (2011–present) On December 31, 2010, Gabriel & Dresden reunited for special one off New Year's Eve celebration alongside
ATB and Francis Preve at the
Hollywood Palladium in Los Angeles. Shortly afterward, the duo were booked on the
Anjunabeats WMC Miami party at the Ice Palace as a special guest. Since this event, Gabriel & Dresden have officially announced themselves as reunited. Since the reunion, Gabriel & Dresden have performed at many clubs and festivals around the world including
Electric Daisy Carnival (Las Vegas, Dallas, Chicago & Orlando),
Tomorrowland in Belgium,
Electric Zoo Festival in New York,
Sunburn Festival in India,
Escape From Wonderland,
Nocturnal Wonderland,
Paradiso Festival,
Creamfields Australia,
ASOT 550: Invasion,
Ministry of Sound, London,
Zouk and a monthly residency at the
Marquee Las Vegas in Las Vegas. In 2011 they signed an artist deal with
Armada Music which brought forth their mix compilation "Mixed for Feet, Volume 1" as well as numerous singles including 2012'a "Play it Back" featuring
Betsie Larkin, "Tomorrow Comes" with Neil Ormandy (2013), "Shatter" (with D-Wayne) and a re-working of
Tracking Treasure Down Revisited. On February 3, 2014, they restarted their monthly radio show "Gabriel & Dresden present
Organized Nature" on
Digitally Imported's progressive channel. Since this show was already on the air in the past, it began this time around with Episode 30. On March 29, 2014 they released "Rise Up" which was supported by a wide variety of DJs including
Above & Beyond,
Eric Prydz,
Armin Van Buuren,
Markus Schulz,
Jason Bentley, amongst many others. The official music video for this song was generated entirely from
Creative Commons License content found on the video sharing website
Vimeo ==Discography==