Outer Edges-Cedar Herald Index

Outer Edges is the third and final studio album by Dutch electronic trio, Noisia. Outer Edges was released on 5 August 2016, by Noisia's own electronic music record label Vision Recordings. Outer Edges was later followed up by a 20-song remix album in April 2017 and a 5-song remix extended play by Noisia in June 2017.

Background and composition

Outer Edges was originally planned to release on 16 September, however a month prior to release, the album was leaked online, prompting Noisia to release the album earlier than expected. The trio later explained why they decided to release the album a month prior to its supposed release date, stating: Friday Night, while we were in the final minutes of setting up the stage for our first ever Outer Edges show, we received the news that our album had been leaked. We think you can imagine how bad we felt at that moment.

Outer Edges

We realise it’s 2016, and things like these happen all the time. Still, it’s quite a setback. All the plans we’ve made have to be scrapped and replaced by something less ideal, because we have to react to this unfortunate situation.

Outer Edges

Even though we are unhappy about this leak, we’re still really happy with the music. We really hope you will enjoy it as much as we’ve enjoyed making it. Outer Edges officially released on 5 August 2016, being the first album by Noisia in 6 years. The album was released alongside a European tour of the same name. When officially announcing the album, Noisia stated:It’s called Outer Edges because it’s us exploring the outer edges of what Noisia, the three of us together, is. It's about the idea that all the songs are little islands that we take to their individual edge... They’re all like expeditions to far sides. That doesn’t mean that it’s everything; it’s just that every song, if it goes in a certain direction, we’ve taken it all the way there. There are no real concessions – we haven’t been super DJ-friendly or radio-friendly at all. We’ve done no collaborations and hardly any vocals on the album.

Outer Edges

Reception and release

Fan Fiction of NEST HQ stated "Outer Edges may not be a perfect album — I think consolidating some of its more redundant or wandering midsection could’ve helped make the overall piece a bit more digestible — but its consistency in futuristic concepts, its ability to transport you to different worlds, and its bar-raising production and execution make it one of the best releases of the year so far".

Dan Gassis of Disposable Media compared Outer Edges to Noisia's previous album, Split The Atom, stating "There’s no doubt that Outer Edges has a lot of good content and is at least worth a listen on streaming sites, but when Split The Atom had the great vocals and big drops of My World, or the superb structure of Shellshock, or the iconic sound of Stigma…you start to wonder what the equivalents are on Outer Edges. Anomaly has a lot of flavour and never gets old, and The Entangled may improve with repeat listens, but the standouts aren’t immediately evident…"

Azasia Durgapershad of The Music Essentials stated "I’ve gotta say, this album was something else. Plenty of musical surprises from Noisia. As a fan and listener of music, I appreciate their artistry and definitely suggest you check this album out. As they have stated, the tracks aren’t really DJ friendly, but we understand that there’s more to electronic music than just to dance. This is an album you can just sit back and soak in all of the musical pleasure".

Adam of Ninja Ninja Drum & Bass praised the album, stating "For me, Outer Edges is just a natural extension of the ethos Noisia have come to represent and the place that they hold in the bass community. The LP is insanely good, it has their trademark impeccable sound design, a lot of variety, some intense originality and it’s just packed full of deep, dark and murky vibes that mean I highly, highly doubt we’re going to hear a better album this year".

Matthew Meadow of Your EDM stated "Outer Edges, their first album in 6 years, explores a variety of bass-centric styles. While the drum & bass masters explore genres at a tangent to drum & bass, the album is phenomenal in every aspect. Sound design, exploration, innovation and boldness abound in the 18 tracks on this album. They really left no stone unturned".