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Gabriel & Dresden return to the EDC spotlight

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Gabriel, left, and Dresden.
Photo: Maria Cavali / Courtesy

The “emotional dance music” of Gabriel & Dresden is back, and it’s beautiful. Songs from crowd-funded December release The Only Road—the San Francisco duo’s first artist album in more than a decade—rose to the top of the Beatport charts upon their release and won over fans old and new. We caught up with Dave Dresden prior to this year’s EDC appearance, G&D’s first time playing Las Vegas since 2012.

What was it like to be added to the lineup after six years away? It means that we did something that warrants us getting booked at one of the top electronic music festivals in the world. It really feels good that we can continue to do this in a very competitive field.

How did the idea to use Kickstarter to fund the record come about? We came to a point where we knew we had to make an album, but we were actually motivated. Josh [Gabriel] and I had independently been listening to a lot of music and really feeling that the direction of music was taking a positive step forward, and we felt like there was an opening for us once again. … It was very daunting idea to ask for money from your fans for a number of reasons. We had no idea what was going to happen, but on the first day we were almost 100 percent funded!

You guys have also been getting a lot of support from other folks in the industry. What was the most rewarding feedback you received? Signing with [British label] Anjunabeats was pretty amazing, and we didn’t realize that not only were two members of Above & Beyond backers on Kickstarter, but also their A&R guy was a backer, too. But for me personally, being asked to play Ultra Music Festival was such a landmark thing, because we haven’t played Ultra since, basically, the era of [2004 hit] “As the Rush Comes.” It’s been such an amazing turnaround for our career over the last year that I never really thought it was going to happen again.

ELECTRIC DAISY CARNIVAL May 18-20, $325 GA (sold out), $699 VIP. Las Vegas Motor Speedway, lasvegas.electricdaisycarnival.com.

Tags: Featured, EDC
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