While we’re all still trying to adapt to this new post-Noisia world, one thing everyone’s been certain about is that it wouldn’t be long before Thys came out with some weird stuff. Enter: Music From Sleeping Beauty Dreams, a new cutting edge “album” of sorts, composed to accompany an equally cutting-edge audiovisual dance show called, unsurprisingly, Sleeping Beauty Dreams.
Now just to clarify, Thys was clearly working on this project long before the announcement of Noisia splitting but everyone know he’s been working on a number of side projects, so this hasn’t been a surreptitious situation. That said, Sleeping Beauty Dreams is entirely its own project and, as Thys himself has said, the resulting album/score was originally composed for the show and its 32 surround sound system. Adapting it for release on digital streaming formats must have been an absolute bitch. It was clearly a labor of love, however, and we’re glad Thys has decided to share it on the Division imprint.
Sleeping Beauty Dreams was created by Magic Reality group, a production company rooted in contemporary dance but using added hyperreal audiovisual elements to its performances to create something otherworldly and to, in their words, “alter the audience’s perception of the physical world.” Right up Thys’s alley. This performance imagines, in stunning visual detail, what Princess Aurora was dreaming about in her 100-year slumber. 
Just from watching the performance on YouTube, the visual artistry in this show is one of a kind and completely mindblowing. Seeing it live in a theatre with Thys’s impeccably crafted score playing on surround sound, it’s got to be a fully immersive, mind-altering experience. The visual element and the sound are tied so tightly to each other, yet this score is more than capable of standing on its own as a piece of experimental electronic music.
It’s interesting to see Thys unleashed on the world like this musically, because while this project is so different from bass music as EDM, it’s also got some classic bass music vibes to it and the sound design here is so clean that only a member of Noisia could have come up with it. While largely beatless, tracks like “Lucid,” “Desire, Violent Desire” “Wingless Flight” and “Overcome” could, in theory, be adapted to the dancefloor. This score was clearly made for the purpose of the show, however, and while they might ring at halftime or breaks tempo and be recognizable as Noisia, these songs are more classical and experimental in nature and Thys may want to keep it that way.
It’s really a great gift that the guys decided to release Music for Sleeping Beauty Dreams on Division for the EDM fanbase. Since it’s such a unique and different project, it’s probably too early to postulate if this is the direction Thys will be taking in the future (knowing him, it’s probably not). This project is a great intermediary step into whatever the future holds for the boys of Noisia: everything’s going to be OK, bass fans.
Music for Sleeping Beauty Dreams is out now on Division Recordings and can be streamed or purchased on multiple platforms by clicking here. The actual show Sleeping Beauty Dreams is still touring in the US for those who want to check it out. Tickets and info here. In the meantime, check out some of the audiovisual magic below or watch the whole playlist on YouTube
