VIDEO: Gotye – ‘Easy Way Out’

Upon its online release in June, it was the video for the stunning track Somebody That I Used To Know that triggered an overwhelming response to this particular song worldwide. Just three weeks after Gotye posted the video on YouTube the song had received nearly four million hits (this number has now exceeded 11 million), topped the charts in 4 countries (Australia, Holland, Belgium and New Zealand) and made it to No.1 on the Hype Machine Twitter chart. Hear it once and you’ll be haunted by it for weeks.

Gotye first found attention with his second album, 2006’s Like Drawing Blood. Influential Australian radio station Triple J named it their album of the year, as did iTunes on its release in the UK in 2008. In Britain, Like Drawing Blood became a cult hit while in the States, it made waves after Drew Barrymore fell in love with single Learnalilgivinanlovin’ and used it in several of her films.

Ask Gotye about his new album Making Mirrors and he’ll speak not of songs, but of sounds. He’ll describe the various valves through which strings and choirs cycle on his Lowrey Cotillion, a vintage organ bought for 100 bucks in a second-hand shop that features on the record. Or how he constructed a bassline by sampling the Winton Musical Fence, an unlikely instrument he discovered in the outback of Queensland, Australia, comprised of five large metal strings attached to wooden fence posts and a resonant chamber.

Listen to Making Mirrors and you’ll be drawn in by thedetails, transported to a world where every moment matters. This is pop at its most precise, but also electronic music at its most emotional. The record delves into dub, Detroit-era Motown soul, stadium-size politipop, synth-folk and world music on glorious, sprawling, huge-hearted songs. It will be released in the UK on 13th February 2012 through Communion / Island Records.