Gotye: Hearts A Mess
“Gotye is one guy, Wally De Backer, who lives in Melbourne but originally hails from Belgium. He’s a talented singer/songwriter/producer. His voice is precise yet malleable, running from smoothly soaring to roughly resigned, and his falsetto pierces like a light in the shadowy landscape of his music.” Pitchforkmedia
Gotye (pronounced Gaultier – like Jean Paul) is a one-man indie success story, a Beck-style sample magpie and a huge-hearted songwriter. Acting as his own manager, plugger and record label while working in a library by day, Belgium born Gotye has won a plethora of prestigious awards in his adopted home of Australia. He has won both the Australian equivalent of the Mercury Music Award (the AMP) and a BRIT Award (the ARIA for Best Male Artist), in 2007. This track “Hearts A Mess” was also voted “Track of the Year” by the listeners of Triple J Radio (Australia’s equivalent to Radio One).
Gotye pieced together ‘Heart’s A Mess’ from a huge collection of records bequeathed him by a neighbour. The main loop being originally lifted from Harry “King of Calypso” Belafonte’s 1956 recording of “Banana Boat Song” (known by its signature lyric “Day-O”) before then being replayed, adapted and recreated for the track.
From the initial pluck of the harp string, the gentle swell of violins, a lush beachcombing slide guitar, backed by that most sumptuous Day-O swinging rhythm ‘Hearts A Mess’ opens a kaleidoscope of feelings, with Gotye’s blue-eyed soul voice having shades of Peter Gabriel. Lull’s beautiful remix adds more glitch, crackle, & ice-cool pop.
This is the first single to be lifted from the forthcoming album ‘Like Drawing Blood’.
