Take two and a half years, four share houses, 757 op shop records, a few thousand dollars lost to dodgy housemates, 2565 hours of community library customer service, 20,000 km of round Australia travel, countless computer crashes and one critical hard disk failure, and you have a rough diary for the recording process of the new record by Gotye (pronounced 'gore-ti-yeah'). All sounds on the album were collected and assembled or performed by Wally de Backer in bedrooms around Melbourne between 2003 and 2005, and the record was mixed and mastered by Franc Tetaz (Wolf Creek soundtrack, Machine Translations, Architecture in Helsinki) giving it a beautiful hi-fi depth and brilliance that goes beyond Wally's lo-fi gem Boardface (2004). Musically, it's another mixed bag with a subtle thread holding it all together alt pop with a broad sonic and thematic palette. The moments of frustration, dissatisfaction and sadness rendered in the spacey dubs of Puzzle with a Piece Missing, Thanks for Your Time's electro Funk Pop and the sumptuous orchestra sounds of Hearts a Mess are countered by the unbridled positivity of Learnalilgivinanlovin's homage to Northern Soul, a Distinctive Sound's turntablist kook and the after life meditations of the Only Way, driven by a Hollywood Pop meets Psychedelic Dancehall groove.
