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Photo credit – Jeff Andersen Jnr

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Praise for BIG SCARY

“an all-encompassing, sometimes-tearful listening experience.” – Bryget Chrisfield, Beat Magazine 

“partnership is everything here… a record that finds its truths in the quiet spaces, holding the listener close to find the light together.” – Giselle Au-Nhien Nguyen, The Guardian

“a moving centrepiece” – Simon Winkler, STACK

“Their very versatility has engendered experimentation, flux and transgression… Big Scary have long defied any limitations” – Cyclone Wehner, NME

“an Australian music scene without Big Scary would be bereft.” – JUNKEE

“not only stands out with its immaculate beauty, but its ability to convey heartwarming or visceral emotions.” – Happy

“in their introversion Big Scary have discovered a sense of joy” – Josh Leeson, Canberra Times

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Following lead singles ‘Something To Remember’ and ‘A Ribbon To Hold Us’, today BIG SCARY release their 6th LP Wing through Pieater. The focus single ‘What It’s All About’ is a chubby, restrained track. Tom Iansek’s self reflections gently weave and pop like bubbles over staccato synth chords that swell with strings. It discusses how day to day pressures can eventually force new perspectives, with life becoming more mysterious and elusive, yet also richer. It meditates on how to navigate and even thrive in the grey area between competing ideas or desires.

If you’ve followed their two previous albums Daisy and Me and You, then much of the story of Wing has already been told.

Big Scary was put on pause mid-2017, following their best successes to date with the single ‘The Opposite Of Us’ and its album Animal – #17 in the Hottest 100; main stage at Splendour in the Grass; a headline show at The Forum… In the break that followed, Tom Iansek made two albums with No Mono (his project with haunting vocalist/songwriter Tom Snowdon), and his third #1 Dads album Golden Repair. Jo Syme started a second label imprint, Hotel Motel Records, with a roster including Cool Sounds, Quivers, and Nat Vazer; as well as launching new artists Maple Glider and Tom Snowdon on Pieater. This pause provided the breathing room Iansek and Syme needed for an honest “re-union”, that helped define what Big Scary really is within the fabric of many creative projects for each member. And what it is is simply “the music made by Tom and Jo, together.”

This simple idea blossomed into a more equal collaboration – sharing songwriting and lyrics more than before, and just the two of them recording the albums in Pieater’s Collingwood studio BellBird – Tom showed Jo how to engineer using ProTools so that they could track each other’s parts. This became the foundation for a great creative outpouring that brought forth Daisy (2021), Me and You (2022), and now Wing – the final limb that enfolds the trio.

As on Daisy and Me and You, the concept of love and relationships are again explored, but on Wing a slight cynicism has snuck in at times, as Expectations versus reality is explored. But there is always space for hope, and with a tenacious positivity the duo find themselves in liminal states – probing the status quo, or even grasping for the divine. 

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Sonically, space and ideas are lingered upon, allowed to stretch out. Synths that pulse and shimmer, reassuring electric guitar riffs, and “vibe-sparkles” are the signature sounds across the collection. Album opener and lead single ‘Something To Remember’ features Iansek’s falsetto, supported by a bed of warm and curious synths, until eventually the drums join in to propel the track into big, warm choruses about surrendering to what you love. Harkening back to the band’s early instrumentation of drums and guitar, ‘The End Of The Road’ details a relationship at a loss.

Moving into a more experimental direction, ‘Perfect World’ features affected spoken word and fluttering synths. We hear two consciousnesses dipping into the realm of the divine, ascending to a higher plane of Supreme Love. On the opposite end of the sanctity of love, ‘Ideal’ is all lust and instinctual attraction – body ruling mind! And from another angle, ‘All You’ve Done To Me’ speaks of love in its realest, unromanticised and unadorned form. Love hurts. Love is work. Love is even misery. But you hold on.

‘Falling From A Mountain’ shifts gear: it’s almost a meditation, and is inspired by the closing scene of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, where Jiaolong dives from Wudan Mountain. The closing track ‘A Ribbon To Hold Us’ unfolds at leisure, at almost 7 minutes in length. A holding-pattern of synths preside until Syme’s floating vocal details the dynamic of an imbalanced love, whilst Iansek’s agitated and repetitive thoughts mirror an ongoing pattern of stubborn naivete and broken promises within a relationship in turmoil.

Currently living at opposite ends of the earth, with Iansek in London and Syme in central Victoria, Big Scary’s next live dates will be somewhere in the future. A vinyl pressing will also be a future endeavour, as the band have rushed to get the digital album released before Syme releases a baby this year! Fans can expect vinyl and tour dates to be revisited in the *hopefully* not too distant future.

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Track list:

Something To Remember
What It’s All About
The End Of The Road
Perfect World
Ideal
All You’ve Done To Me
Falling From A Mountain
A Ribbon To Hold Us

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Photo credit – Jeff Andersen Jnr

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Follow BIG SCARY
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Bandcamp · YouTube · bigscary.net

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AMNPLIFY – DB