OK I’m going to be upfront. This guy is fucking incredible.

I’ve played or produced on about 300 records by many different acts in the past 3 years, and including some platinum sellers, and out of all of them, Gotye’s album “Like drawing blood” is the one I am most proud to be involved with.

Let’s get the facts out of the way to start with. Gotye is pronounced like “Jean Paul Gaultier”. He’s a Belgian living in Australia called Wally de Backer. He plays incredible drums and sings with a pure innocent voice, that suddenly intensifies into and kind of ethereal Sting at high volume. He makes beautiful thoughtful music out of a mixture of live instruments and leftfield found fragments of other peoples records. OK that’s just sampling, but he has his own way with samples that makes it sound curiously personal and intimate.

I don’t think I’ve heard an album for a long time that manages to combine this level of artistic integrity with an unpretentious accessibility.

Wanna see what he’s got?

Firstly here is the incredible video to the haunting “Hearts a mess” (which features members of The Young Punx on violin and guitar (yep That’s Guthrie Govan near the end!)).

Now let’s meet the man himself, playing live drums and singing live.

And finally an mp3 track download for you, which I hope Wally doesn’t mind, since I’ve seen this track on a couple of other sites recently so it is loose on the blogosphere anyway: “Thanks for your time” is a track for anyone who has been left on hold, had to talk to a computer on the phone, or otherwise been messed around by a company. Give it time to grow. This isn’t an instant hit. It is a clever grower.

download mp3 : “Gotye : Thanks for your time”