Beloved Dutch trio Noisia are reuniting after seven years apart.
The group — Nik Roos, Martijn van Sonderen and Thijs de Vlieger — announced Thursday (Sept. 17) that they’re reforming the project. A press release about the reunion notes that after spending the last seven years focused on their respective solo projects, the three guys missed “the exchange of ideas between them, and the feedback loop that begins when their music meets a crowd.”
Crowds won’t have to wait too long to see them again, as Noisia will play its first show back on Dec. 4 at Amsterdam’s Melkweg, where they played during their farewell tour, which extended into 2022 due to the pandemic. Information about additional shows will be announced in time.
Additionally, the trio teased their reunion with the Sept. 10 release a 27-minute documentary, Vlucht, directed by Farhad Khodadadzade. Watch the documentary below.
“It’s a risk we’re taking, to put an end to something we’ve built for two decades,” the trio told Billboard in a joint 2019 interview about their breakup. “We’re saying it now, because we have made the final decision only recently. We took time to think about it. It’s painful, but it is absolutely the right thing to do.”
Over the last seven years, Roos continued developing his bass project Sleepnet, then launching Ring Noord with Former, while also working across projects including the house duo Body Ocean, production, scoring and audio technology. De Vlieger continued his work as Thys through collaborations with Amon Tobin, composing for film, contemporary dance and fashion and writing for instrumental ensembles and electronic music projects. Van Sonderen continued with the duo Zonderling, alongside writing and production work across house, melodic techno, pop and hip-hop under his producer name, NSR. The guys will continue working on these respective projects amid the Noisia re-launch.
“What do I want to do? Something I can’t do on my own,” van Sonderen says in a press release about the reunion. “Getting a rough idea from the guys and letting my own ideas loose on it. That already feels exciting again. Maybe exactly because it doesn’t have to feel exciting.”
“For me, doing the farewell tour actually planted the seed of the idea that Noisia can be what we want it to be, not what we think it has to be,” adds Roos. “When the subject surfaced again, it felt much lighter and surprisingly fun to talk about. Feeling the others’ excitement about it is what really fuelled that for me.”
“What I’m most excited about,” continues de Vlieger, “is to see what the relationship, what the meeting of minds, can bring creatively again. It’s really exciting to redefine this relationship and this friendship on new terms that align with who we are and who we want to be.”
Roos van Sonderen and de Vlieger met in the late ’90s in the northern Dutch town of Groningen, first as graffiti artists who began working together on electronic music. The trio blew up with their drum & bass productions before expanding into electro, house, pop and beyond, gaining prestige for the complexity and meticulousness of their productions. In 2014, their track “Tommy’s Theme” spent 18 weeks on Hot Dance/Electronic Songs, peaking at No. 44.
They also graced this same chart during their hiatus with “Supersonic (My Existence)” from Skrillex’s 2023 album Quest For Fire. Made by Skrillex (who was mentored by Noisia during his come-up), Josh Pan, Dylan Brady and the trio, the track expands on Pan and Brady’s 2019 song “Supersonic” and spent 11 weeks on the chart, peaking at No. 13.
