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Gabriel & Dresden plug into Black & Blue

DIRECT CURRENTS: Gabriel & Dresden

by DANNY LÉGARÉ

Prior to famously meeting at a rooftop party during the 2001 Miami Winter Music Conference, San Francisco’s Josh Gabriel and Dave Dresden each carved a worthy spot in electronic dance music. Gabriel, having made music on computers since the ’80s, co-founded Mixman Technologies—pioneers in remixing software—before dropping his hit track, the OMD-sampling progressive houser “Wave 3.” Dave Dresden, meanwhile, was a music journalist, DJ, music director and talent scout, working alongside legendary U.K. DJ Pete Tong. Together, Gabriel & Dresden are a formidable team, be it as remixers (for Tiësto, New Order and that Madonna/Britney jam), DJs (they’ve snagged numerous awards) or producers—the pair have also recorded as both Motorcycle and Andain, and as Gabriel & Dresden, their eponymous album of 2006 generated the hit “Dangerous Power.” What could be better for the Power Trip party, Black & Blue’s main event this year?

Mirror: You have made a name for yourselves remixing a lot of commercial artists. Was there ever a remix you turned down?

Dave Dresden: We just had to turn down Interpol’s “No I in Threesome,” not because we didn’t love it, but because we are in the middle of producing the Andain album. Remixes, as fun as they are to do, can’t ever compare to having your own album out there.

M: Your self-titled album segued like a DJ set, branching progressive with indie dance, electro-tech-house with vocal-laden club stompers like “Dust in the Wind.” What made you guys decide to cover “Dust in the Wind”?

Josh Gabriel: We chose that song because of how relevant it was to today. How the message in that song will seemingly never change, and how it was done by Kansas originally and just seemed so wrong on paper, but right in all the other ways.

M: Was it important to you to sequence the album like a DJ set?

DD: Yes and no. We know that a lot of our fans found out about us from clubbing, so making a seamless, but not DJ-mixed, album seemed like the right way to go. When we spent the time putting the album together and heard how the songs sounded after each other, we really liked it, and stuck by the concept of making it a listening experience rather than a bunch of songs on a disc.

M: How did the remix for Gustavo Santaolalla’s “Theme From Brokeback Mountain” come about?

JG: The record label [Verve/Forecast] was looking to do club mixes for the tune, and had heard through an intern at a studio that we were the guys for the job. They were looking for a very musical approach which kept the integrity of the song intact. After speaking to us, and then getting us on the phone with Gustavo himself, they were sold.

M: An alien drops from the sky with two turntables and a pair of headphones, and asks what the essential tracks to understanding electronic dance music are. Which bands or songs would you recommend?

DD: There are so many ways of presenting dance music to people, and no two ways are right or wrong. For us, many of the early trance tunes from Sven Väth’s Eye-Q label from the early ’90s would be preferred, as would tracks like BBE’s “7 Days and One Week.” Of course, we’d also like to put some Depeche Mode, Cure, New Order and Kraftwerk songs in there just for good measure.

With Peter Rauhofer, Mark Anthony,
Misstress Barbara, Robert de la Gauthier
and more at Black & Blue’s main event
Power Trip at the Olympic Stadium on
Sunday, Oct. 7, 9 p.m., $80. For more
info, go to www.bbcm.org