Gotye - Making Mirrors (15th Anniversary) [2LP Cream]

Making Mirrors turns 15, and this anniversary edition spreads Gotye's 2011 album across two LPs pressed on cream-coloured vinyl.

Wally De Backer had already built a loyal following in Australia when his third album arrived, but nobody could have predicted what happened next. "Somebody That I Used To Know," his duet with Kimbra, became a worldwide hit, the kind of song that seemed to drift out of every café and car stereo for a year. The danger with a song that big is that it swallows the album around it. Here, it does not.

Making Mirrors is a sampler-builder's record, stitched together from found sounds, vintage instruments and De Backer's restless ear for texture. "Eyes Wide Open" drives forward with real urgency, and "I Feel Better" pays loving tribute to horn-laden 1960s soul. The tender closer "Bronte" shows how much feeling he can pack into a quiet arrangement, a gentle exhale after everything that came before.

Every song feels like it came from a different radio station, yet the whole thing hangs together through craft and curiosity.

Fifteen years on, the album still sounds like the work of a tinkerer who happened to write a global smash, and the double cream vinyl gives these carefully built songs the room they deserve.