Big Scary – Not Art (10th Anniversary Edition, Coloured Vinyl)

Big Scary's album Not Art is getting a little 10 year birthday honour, treated to a colourful facelift, and providing a chance for the band and fans to reflect on this beloved sophomore album.

If there's such thing as a "quiet breakthrough", this was it for the duo of Jo Syme and Tom Iansek. It was a big step up in vision and purpose from their 2011 debut Vacation, made with clarity on what the production values would be (inspired by the contemporary hip hop production and older cuts from DJ Shadow). Thematically it traverses ideas of identity, and the fickle, elusive nature of love and lust.

It was self-produced and tracked by Tom Iansek, fresh out of an audio engineering degree, and mixed by powerhouse Tom Elmhirst (David Bowie, Bruce Springsteen, Adele, Franz Ferdinand et al) - who gave the ultimate compliment to Iansek by conceding he couldn't do a better mix than Iansek's "reference mix" of "Lay Me Down", so that version is the final one.

It was ARIA-nominated for Best Independent Release and Breakthrough Artist, nominated for the J-Award, Music Victoria-nominated for Best Album, and AIR-nominated for Best Independent Artist and Best Independent Single (Luck Now). It actually won the 2013 Australian Music Prize, an accolade the band remain proud of today.

To date, over 2,000 copies of the vinyl have been sold, and 14.5M streams made, despite the album being released prior to streaming platforms.

Something about the record burrowed into the hearts of a generation of fans (and let's admit it, kicked off Australia's obsession with Monstera Deliciosa thanks to album art from Adam Stone). It's for this reason that, despite 10 years and 3 albums later, songs from Not Art still grace the live set.