Big Scary - Not Art (LP)

Big Scary’s Not Art arrived in 2013 as the Melbourne duo’s second full‑length, and it still feels like a quiet revelation. Tom Iansek and Jo Syme had already shown their range on Vacation, but here they pared things back and let space do the heavy lifting. The songs breathe. Piano lines sit next to roomy drums and a low, unhurried vocal that never strains for effect. You get the sense of two musicians trusting each other, and trusting restraint, which is rarer than it should be.

The opener tees up the palette nicely, with Iansek’s keys setting a cool foundation while Syme’s drums and harmonies push and pull at the edges. Big Scary are nominally a rock duo, yet they resist filling every corner. On Not Art the negative space is part of the design, the small swells hitting harder because they arrive after quiet spells. It’s a record that rewards late‑night listening, lights down, needle running clean through both sides.

“Phil Collins” is the wink everyone remembers, not just for the title but for the way it plays with rhythm and texture. The groove lands with that crisp, era‑skewed punch, while the vocal hovers just above it, more conspiratorial than declarative. It’s clever but it doesn’t feel like a joke. That balance is the album’s centre of gravity. Even when a hook grips, the band keeps its cool, letting tones and patience carry the emotion.

Then there’s “Twin Rivers,” a slow‑burner that’s become a fan favourite for good reason. The arrangement is spare at first, a river of keys with a gentle undercurrent in the drums, then the chorus lifts without breaking the spell. It’s a lesson in how to scale a song without blowing it wide open. By the end it feels widescreen, yet you can still hear the wood in the sticks and the air around the microphone. Big Scary albums often contain that kind of careful growth, but Not Art nails it front to back.

A lot of the record hinges on Iansek’s ear for detail. He produced the album himself, and you can hear his fascination with texture in the way the piano is recorded, in the ghostly layers that slide in and out of focus. Syme, for her part, plays with a songwriter’s intuition, holding back, nudging, dropping in harmonies that colour the lyric without crowding it. They move like a band that has rehearsed the silence as much as the parts. It’s easy to forget there are only two of them.

Not Art drew strong attention on release in Australia, with Big Scary’s name suddenly popping up everywhere from indie blogs to triple j’s daily rotation. The album also earned a spot on the Australian Music Prize shortlist, not bad for a self‑driven project released through their own Pieater imprint. That nod made sense. This was a thoughtful, cohesive set that stood apart from the louder, more maximal records doing the rounds in 2013, and it has aged well.

If you’re the kind of listener who likes to buy Big Scary records online and stack them next to fellow Melbourne favourites, Not Art is a must. The Not Art vinyl pressing suits the music’s dynamic range, with the quiet passages staying hushed and the crescendos arriving with real weight. Spin it in the evening and those delicate pianos bloom. It’s the sort of record that makes you double check your speaker placement, then sit back and let side two roll. For fans building a shelf of Big Scary albums on vinyl, this one sits right between the raw curiosity of Vacation and the widescreen confidence that came later, a perfect middle chapter.

There’s also a local pride that comes with it. Big Scary are very much a Melbourne band, and you can hear the city’s indie scene of the time in their approach, the do‑it‑yourself ethic polished by care rather than gloss. If you’re browsing a Melbourne record store or trawling through vinyl records Australia wide, this is the copy you hope to find tucked in the B section, a little ringwear on the sleeve, the inner still crisp. Big Scary vinyl tends to vanish from crates once people clock what’s inside.

More than a decade on, Not Art still feels personal and grounded. It doesn’t shove its ideas at you. It sits with them, asks you to sit too, and lets the details carry the day. Put it on, let “Phil Collins” and “Twin Rivers” guide you in, and you’ll hear two musicians thinking carefully about every choice, playing for the song, and landing something that lingers long after the last piano note fades.