What So Not - Not All The Beautiful Things (2LP)

Flip past the usual suspects in the electronic section and there it is, a record that still feels like a small victory for adventurous pop and club music. In 2018, What So Not finally delivered his debut album, Not All The Beautiful Things, and it landed with a rush of color and nerve. Chris Emerson had already spent years touring under the name after What So Not shifted from a duo with Flume to a solo project, but this was the first proper long player. It came out on Counter Records, the Ninja Tune imprint, which already tells you something about the ambitions here. Big rooms, but a wide emotional range too.

The guest list grabbed headlines for good reason. Daniel Johns shows up in heartbreaking mode on Be Ok Again, a late night anthem that lets a fractured vocal sit right on top of a heavy, patient low end. It felt like a left turn at the time, yet the fit is uncanny. The long-teased Goh with Skrillex finally emerged, spring-loaded and nasty in all the right places, with KLP adding a cool, human edge. On the opposite pole sits Beautiful with Winona Oak, a song that glows instead of detonates. Oak’s voice hovers like a lighthouse while the drums stay restrained, and that restraint is what makes the drop hit harder when it finally arrives.

The record’s surprises don’t stop there. Stuck In Orbit with BUOY is all cracked porcelain and weightless bass, an almost dream-pop take on festival dynamics. If You Only Knew finds San Holo trading ideas with Emerson, both of them dialing down the sugar rush in favor of a more patient pulse. Then there is the wild card moment, We Keep On Running with Steve Lukather and Joseph Williams of Toto. On paper, you might raise an eyebrow. On vinyl, it works. Lukather’s guitar tone, glossy yet lethal, threads through a rhythm section built for modern systems, while Williams delivers drama without tipping into kitsch. The crossover is bold and strangely natural, a reminder that dance music and AOR have always shared a love of sky-high hooks.

What sets Not All The Beautiful Things apart is the way it moves. The sequencing feels like a night out that remembers to breathe. There are fireworks, of course, but you get the sense that these songs were road tested and then rebuilt for the home listen. The percussion is tactile, the subs are sculpted, and little details flicker at the edges. Emerson has always cared about texture, and here he indulges that instinct without losing the plot. When the adrenaline spikes, it does so with purpose. When the lights dim, the melodies carry their weight.

Pulling this album from a sleeve is a small ritual worth having. The Not All The Beautiful Things vinyl pressing gives the low end room to bloom, which matters on a record that lives and dies by how the kick and bass meet. Turn it up and Goh feels nastier, Be Ok Again feels lonelier, Beautiful feels even more intimate. If you like What So Not vinyl because it turns club moments into something you can sit with, this is the keeper. It is also the one I point to when people ask where to start with What So Not albums on vinyl. You can buy What So Not records online easily enough, but I still like spotting this one in a Melbourne record store bin, scuffed corners and all, because it suggests someone played the hell out of it and then passed it on for the next person to discover. For anyone hunting around for vinyl records Australia wide, put this on your list.

Five years on, the album has a staying power that many big-tent electronic releases don’t manage. The collaborations don’t feel bolted on. The pop instincts don’t smother the oddball edges. Even the quieter tracks carry a sense of motion that rewards repeat listens. If you come for the drops, you will get them. If you come for the scenes between the peaks, you’ll get those too. That balance is hard to strike, and it is why Not All The Beautiful Things vinyl keeps sneaking back onto my turntable when newer records wear out their welcome.