San Franciscan trance duo Josh Gabriel and Dave Dresden first appeared on the scene in 2001, at the peak of the U.S. electronica boom. Dresden was a DJ with 15 years' experience who had grown up on new wave, alternative, and industrial dance; Gabriel was a CalArts music graduate and computer wunderkind who had pioneered loop-based music composition with his software Mixman.
The pair met at the Miami Winter Music Conference, where Gabriel was handing out his debut single to DJs. Dresden passed the single to Pete Tong, for whom he was working as a talent scout; Tong loved it a...