EXCLUSIVE: How Has Hip Hop Influenced Big Scary's Latest LP?

Have Melbourne indie band Big Scary gone dubstep? Are there really hip hop influences on their upcoming second album, Not Art? Tom Iansek (lead vocals, guitar and piano) and Jo Syme (drums and vocals) are hosting a listening session, so we'll soon find out.

In fact, it's more like a housewarming party for Big Scary's new pro studio, Mixed Business, in Fitzroy. The two-storey hub is suitably cosy with crated plants, blackboards and second-hand furniture. On the wall of the main recording room are pictures of cute puppies from an old calendar. There's a backyard with a barbecue. Tonight it's illuminated by a projection from an upper bedroom. Folkie Vance Joy has already checked it all out.

Big Scary have prepared the food themselves – and the veggie kebabs are yum. (Big Scary's old song Hamilton is about the drudgery of working in hospitality.) Mexican beer and a mysterious vat of punch are also on offer. So DIY are Big Scary that they've recruited family members to pass around platters and take photos.

After 7pm, Not Art is played loudly on speakers throughout the building. Listeners sit on the floor and gravitate to a hookah. Happily, the dubstep rumours aren't true. But the Big Scary of Not Art is very different to that of 2011's debut Vacation. It sounds like Fleetwood Mac produced by Kanye West – and maximalist. The once wildly eclectic Big Scary have committed to post-rock, with a twist. 

Ex-Yves Klein Blue bassist Sean Cook produced Vacation, but this time around Iansek is in charge. (Though Not Art was mixed by Tom Elmhirst, whose credits include The Kills, Amy Winehouse and Mark Ronson, in New York.) Iansek has been influenced by hip hop production techniques, particularly sampling. Syme's beats are bigger. Iansek is likewise stretching his voice, evoking Jeff Buckley. Not Art is an album about the artistic process – as suggested on the moodily meta "teaser" track Phil Collins – but, this being Big Scary, it's too subversive to be indulgent. 

Not Art is out June 28 through Big Scary's own label Pieater (distributed by Inertia). The band gave us a taste of how it would sound back in February.

Reporting by Cyclone