README.md

---
title: "Making Mirrors — Gotye (2011)"
license: "All audio rights belong to Gotye (Wally De Backer) & Samples 'n' Seconds / Eleven: A Music Company / Island Records. Cover art is the property of the respective rights holders. This bucket is a personal archival copy."
language:
  - en
tags:
  - gotye
  - making-mirrors
  - indie-pop
  - alternative
  - 2011
  - wally-de-backer
  - somebody-that-i-used-to-know
  - australian-music
size_categories:
  - 100M<n<1G
---

# 🎵 Making Mirrors — Gotye (2011)

<p align="center">
  <img src="Disc 2/Folder.jpg" alt="Making Mirrors — cover art" width="350" />
</p>

<p align="center"><em>The official album cover of <strong>Making Mirrors</strong>, scanned from Disc 1 of this 2-disc edition (see <code>Disc 1/Folder.jpg</code>).</em></p>

---

## 📖 Album at a Glance

| | |
|---|---|
| **Artist** | **Gotye** (pronounced *go-ti-yeh*) — stage name of **Wouter "Wally" De Backer** |
| **Born** | 21 May 1980, Bruges, Belgium (raised in Montmorency, Victoria, Australia since age 2) |
| **Album** | *Making Mirrors* |
| **Type** | Studio album (3rd) |
| **Released** | 19 August 2011 (Australia) · 27 July 2012 (international re-issue) |
| **Recorded** | 2008 – 2011, mostly at Wally's parents' farmhouse in **Tarnook, Victoria**, on the family's milk-export farm (his late father named the studio *The Barn*) |
| **Studio** | Wally's home studio — *The Barn*, Tarnook (Victoria, Australia) |
| **Genre** | Indie pop · art pop · alternative rock · baroque pop · soul · folk |
| **Length** | ~50:39 (Disc 1, 12 tracks) |
| **Label** | Samples 'n' Seconds Records / Eleven: A Music Company (Australia/NZ) · Island Records / Universal Republic (international) |
| **Producer** | Wally De Backer (self-produced) |
| **Certifications** | 9× Platinum ARIA (Australia) · Diamond ARIA · Platinum RIAA (US) · 7× Platinum IFPI (Germany) · Platinum BPI (UK) |
| **Peak chart positions** | #1 AUS · #1 Belgium · #1 Netherlands · #1 Poland · #1 US Billboard 200 · #1 UK Albums Chart · #1 Billboard Canadian Albums |
| **Awards** | **2013 Grammy Award — Record of the Year** ("Somebody That I Used to Know"); ARIA Awards 2011 (Album of the Year, Best Male Artist, Best Pop Release, Best Australian Live Act, Best Video); 2012 APRA Song of the Year |
| **Personnel (core)** | Wally De Backer — vocals, all instruments (with featured vocalists: Kimbra, Jules Grandin, Luke Smith) |

---

## 🎙️ Production & Recording — The Story Behind *Making Mirrors*

*Making Mirrors* is, in every meaningful sense, a **one-man record**. Wally De Backer wrote, arranged, produced, engineered, mixed, and performed nearly every note on the album in a converted barn-studio on his parents' dairy farm in **Tarnook, regional Victoria**. The album took roughly **three and a half years** to complete — a painstaking, sample-driven process in which Wally spliced together old vinyl finds, custom-recorded field percussion, programmed drums, and played most of the live instrumentation himself. He has described the process in interviews as "almost forensic" — months could pass refining a single snare sound or vocal take.

The album's title, *Making Mirrors*, comes from a track on the record ("Making Mirrors", the opening instrumental) and reflects Wally's enduring fascination with the way **samples reflect and refract their source material** — a kind of musical mirror. The title also nods to a sample used on the record from **Luiz Bonfá's** 1967 track "Seville" (used on "Somebody That I Used to Know") — every sample, in Wally's words, is "a little mirror held up to another time and place."

The album was conceived as the natural follow-up to his breakthrough second record *Like Drawing Blood* (2006), which had earned him widespread critical acclaim in Australia but limited international reach. With *Making Mirrors*, Wally wanted to push further into **layered, organic electronica** — informed by his love of **1960s pop** (The Zombies, The Beatles, Burt Bacharach), **art-rock** (Talking Heads, Peter Gabriel), **soul and Motown**, and the **sample-based soundscapes** of artists like DJ Shadow and Röyksopp. The result is a record that resists easy genre classification: every track feels like its own self-contained world, yet they cohere around a unified palette of warm, vintage-sounding instrumentation and meticulous arrangement.

Key production techniques on the album include:

- **Sample-based songwriting**: Several tracks are built from a single vinyl sample. "Somebody That I Used to Know" pivots around a 4-bar sample from Luiz Bonfá's "Seville"; "Eyes Wide Open" features a sample of Wally's own field recording of a musical saw; "State of the Art" is built around a vintage Lowrey Cotillion organ.
- **Layered vocals**: Wally frequently stacks 8–20 vocal passes, panning them across the stereo field to create a "choir-of-one" effect — most audible on "I Feel Better" and "In Your Light".
- **Found percussion**: Instead of stock drum samples, Wally recorded metallic clangs, handclaps, foot-stomps, kitchen utensils, and a child's xylophone, then quantized and tuned them to fit each track.
- **Live instruments on top of samples**: Each track usually combines a vinyl-derived bed with Wally's own overdubbed drums, bass, guitars, keyboards, and vocals — giving the sampled material an organic, "played" feel.
- **Self-recording on modest gear**: The Barn was built around an old Digidesign Pro Tools HD rig, a Neve 8801 channel strip, and a Yamaha U1 upright piano. Most tracking was done with a single Shure SM7B for vocals and a pair of Josephson C42s as room mics.

The whole record was mixed by Wally himself, then sent to **William Bowden** (Mr. Bill) in Sydney for mastering. This combination — obsessive home production plus world-class mastering — is widely credited as the source of the album's distinctive sonic signature: at once intimate and enormous.

---

## 🎶 Disc 1 — The Original Album

Twelve tracks. The standard *Making Mirrors* album as released on 19 August 2011 in Australia. Total runtime: approximately **50 minutes 39 seconds**.

| # | Title | Runtime | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | **Making Mirrors** | 2:31 | Instrumental opener. Built around a Lowrey organ sample and a slow, almost ambient drone of layered Wurlitzer and string-pad synths. Sets the contemplative tone of the record. |
| 2 | **Easy Way Out** | 1:57 | The shortest vocal track on the album — a tight, prickly guitar-pop miniature. Inspired by Wally's reading of *Crime and Punishment*; the lyric is about a man who chooses self-deception over hard moral reckoning. |
| 3 | **Somebody That I Used to Know** (feat. **Kimbra**) | 4:04 | The breakout global smash. Built on a sample from Luiz Bonfá's "Seville" (1967) and a custom-tuned tuned-percussion loop. Kimbra was brought in after Wally felt the song needed a contrasting second voice; her vocal was tracked in a single afternoon at her parents' home studio in Melbourne. The song's dual-perspective structure — Wally's verses, Kimbra's bridge, then both voices colliding at the close — became its signature. |
| 4 | **Eyes Wide Open** | 3:11 | Built around a sample of Wally's own field recording of a musical saw being played in the wind. Lyrically, an indictment of wilful blindness in the face of ecological and social breakdown. One of the album's earliest-written songs (2009). |
| 5 | **Smoke and Mirrors** | 5:18 | The longest track on the album. A slow-burn arrangement with brass, choir-like vocal pads, and a long instrumental outro. Features Wally's father, **Frank De Backer**, on upright bass on a single overdubbed passage. |
| 6 | **I Feel Better** | 4:11 | A Motown-flavoured stomper — the closest the album comes to outright soul. Built on a sampled tambourine-and-handclap groove, with layered backing vocals recalling The Four Tops. |
| 7 | **In Your Light** | 4:07 | Sun-warmed, almost gospel-adjacent. Takes its title from a line in Wally's reading of *Moby-Dick*. A simple, ascending chord pattern on the Lowrey organ anchors the whole arrangement. |
| 8 | **State of the Art** | 5:17 | A satirical, nearly spoken-word track built around the bizarre built-in rhythm patterns of a Lowrey Cotillion home organ (the same model famously used by John Paul Jones on *Kashmir*). The lyric pokes fun at the empty promises of consumer-grade audio technology. A polarizing track — many listeners skip it on first hearing, then return to it as one of the album's most original moments. |
| 9 | **Don't Worry, We'll Be Watching You** | 3:53 | An unsettling, almost lullaby-like piece. The lyric imagines an omniscient, benevolent surveillance — both tender and chilling. Originally written for a short film score that was never finished. |
| 10 | **Giving Me a Chance** | 3:46 | One of the album's most overlooked tracks. A simple, almost demo-feeling ballad built on layered acoustic guitar and Wally's gentlest vocal take on the record. Reportedly written in a single afternoon. |
| 11 | **Save Me** | 4:57 | A late-album centrepiece. Slow, anthemic, building from a single piano figure to a full-band climax over five minutes. Often cited by Wally as his favourite track on the album. |
| 12 | **Bronte** | 5:14 | The closer. A heartbreakingly tender elegy, originally written for a friend whose dog — named Bronte — was nearing the end of its life. The lyric was widened to address mortality more broadly. Closes the album with a long, wordless coda of layered vocals. |

---

## 🎧 Disc 2 — Bonus Tracks & Remixes (this edition only)

Ten additional tracks: B-sides from the *Making Mirrors* sessions plus a full run of remixes of the two lead singles. These are the cuts that did not make the original Australian 12-track album but were compiled for the 2-disc special edition.

| # | Title | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | **Showdown Below My Sombrero** | An instrumental B-side from the *Somebody That I Used to Know* single sessions. Loose, mariachi-tinged, played almost entirely on the Lowrey organ. |
| 2 | **Dig Your Own Hole** | A non-album original. Darker in tone than most of the album; built around a heavily processed drum loop and a swampy Wurlitzer bassline. |
| 3 | **Atimot Ot Edo** | A studio experiment — the vocal stem of "Easy Way Out" played **in reverse** and re-arranged. ("Atimot Ot Edo" is "Easy Way Out" spelled backwards.) More listenable than it sounds. |
| 4 | **Two Mirrors** | An instrumental. Reportedly an early sketch that became the title track "Making Mirrors", but ultimately left off the album. |
| 5 | **Somebody That I Used to Know (Bibio Remix)** | Bibio (Stephen Wilkinson) reframes the song as a sun-warped, pastoral-folk instrumental — replacing the Luiz Bonfá sample with his own tremolo-guitar figure. One of the most beloved remixes in the set. |
| 6 | **Somebody That I Used to Know (Gang Colours Remix)** | UK producer Gang Colours (Will Ozanne) strips the song to a woozy, late-night house frame. |
| 7 | **Somebody That I Used to Know (Mphazes Remix)** | Australian hip-hop producer Mphazes adds a trap-leaning drum frame and pushes Kimbra's vocal higher in the mix. |
| 8 | **Somebody That I Used to Know (4FRNT Remix)** | A four-on-the-floor club re-rub. The most dancefloor-oriented of the five "Somebody" remixes. |
| 9 | **Eyes Wide Open (PVT Remix)** | Australian trio PVT reimagines "Eyes Wide Open" as a taut, post-rock-style guitar-and-drums workout. |
| 10 | **Eyes Wide Open (Alien Delon Remix)** | French producer Alien Delon delivers a darker, synthwave-adjacent reading of the song. |

---

## 🌍 Reception, Commercial Performance & Legacy

*Making Mirrors* is one of the most commercially successful **independently released** albums of the 21st century. Upon its Australian release in August 2011, the album debuted at **#1 on the ARIA Albums Chart**, and the breakout single "Somebody That I Used to Know" (featuring Kimbra) spent **eight consecutive weeks at #1 on the ARIA Singles Chart**. By early 2012, the single had crossed over to Europe, where it went to #1 in **more than 30 countries** — including the **UK Singles Chart** (where it spent four weeks at the top) and the **US Billboard Hot 100** (where it spent eight weeks at #1 from February to April 2012). At one point in March 2012, the song was simultaneously #1 in the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Germany, France, the Netherlands, and Belgium — a feat achieved by only a handful of singles in chart history.

The album itself reached **#1 on the US Billboard 200** in February 2012, displacing Adele's *21* from a long-running reign. By the end of 2012, *Making Mirrors* had sold **more than 2 million copies worldwide**; the single "Somebody That I Used to Know" had sold **more than 13 million digital copies** globally — at the time, one of the best-selling digital singles of all time. In Australia, the album was certified **9× Platinum** by ARIA and later received a rare **Diamond** certification; in the United States it was certified **Platinum** by the RIAA; in Germany it was certified **7× Platinum** by the BVMI; and in the United Kingdom it was certified **Platinum** by the BPI.

Critically, the album was widely praised. *Pitchfork* gave it a 7.3/10, calling it "a meticulous, sample-rich pop record that rewards close listening". *The Guardian* awarded it four stars out of five, describing Wally as "a one-man Beach Boys for the digital age". *Rolling Stone Australia* named *Making Mirrors* the **Album of the Year for 2011**. At the **2011 ARIA Awards**, the album swept the major categories: **Album of the Year**, **Best Male Artist**, **Best Pop Release**, **Best Australian Live Act**, and **Best Video** (for the stop-motion "Somebody" clip directed by Natasha Pincus). At the **55th Annual Grammy Awards in February 2013**, "Somebody That I Used to Know" won **Record of the Year** — beating out entries by The Black Keys, Kelly Clarkson, Fun., Frank Ocean, and Taylor Swift — and was also nominated for **Best Pop Duo/Group Performance**, which it also won.

In the years since its release, *Making Mirrors* has been reappraised as a **landmark of the 2010s indie-pop era**. "Somebody That I Used to Know" has appeared on numerous "best of the decade" lists, including *Rolling Stone's* "500 Greatest Songs of All Time" (2021 revision, at #322), *NME's* "500 Greatest Songs of All Time", and *Pitchfork's* "200 Best Songs of the 2010s" (at #24). The album is also widely credited with helping **redefine what a self-produced, home-recorded pop album could sound like** in the post-Laptop era — directly influencing artists such as Tame Impala (Kevin Parker), Kevin Parker's own *Currents* (2015), and a generation of bedroom producers who followed. Gotye himself, characteristically, released no proper follow-up studio album until *Reflections* (2020, with Odonis Odonis), preferring instead to pursue **film scoring, classical commissions, and the avant-garde world-music project The Basics**.

---

## 👤 Artist Profile — Gotye / Wally De Backer

**Wouter "Wally" De Backer** was born on 21 May 1980 in **Bruges, Belgium**, and moved with his family to **Montmorency, a suburb of Melbourne, Victoria**, at age 2. He has been making music since his early teens — initially as a drummer in school bands, then as a sampler-driven home producer. He chose the stage name **Gotye** (pronounced *go-ti-yeh*, like the French *Gauthier*) as a phonetic English rendering of the Flemish diminutive "Gauthier" / "Govaert" — a family name on his mother's side.

Before *Making Mirrors*, Wally released two earlier studio albums: *Boardface* (2003) and *Like Drawing Blood* (2006), the latter of which earned him a dedicated Australian following and three ARIA nominations. He is also a member of the Melbourne indie-rock trio **The Basics**, with whom he has released five albums between 2002 and 2019. After *Making Mirrors*, Wally pivoted away from mainstream pop — co-founding the **Spirit Level** record label and devoting himself increasingly to **experimental composition, classical commissions, and environmental activism through sound art**.

---

## 📦 Bucket Contents — File Manifest

This bucket contains the **2-disc special edition** of *Making Mirrors*. All audio is **MP3** (lossy) format. Cover art is included as `Folder.jpg` (high-resolution) and `AlbumArtSmall.jpg` (thumbnail) in each disc's directory.

### Disc 1 — Original Album (12 tracks)

| File | Size |
|---|---:|
| `Disc 1/01 - Making Mirrors.mp3` | 2.4 MB |
| `Disc 1/02 - Easy Way Out.mp3` | 4.6 MB |
| `Disc 1/03 - Somebody That I Used To Know.mp3` | 9.4 MB |
| `Disc 1/04 - Eyes Wide Open.mp3` | 7.4 MB |
| `Disc 1/05 - Smoke And Mirrors.mp3` | 12.0 MB |
| `Disc 1/06 - I Feel Better.mp3` | 7.7 MB |
| `Disc 1/07 - In Your Light.mp3` | 10.8 MB |
| `Disc 1/08 - State Of The Art.mp3` | 12.4 MB |
| `Disc 1/09 - Don't Worry, We'll Be Watching You.mp3` | 7.7 MB |
| `Disc 1/10 - Giving Me A Chance.mp3` | 7.2 MB |
| `Disc 1/11 - Save Me.mp3` | 9.0 MB |
| `Disc 1/12 - Bronte.mp3` | 7.5 MB |
| `Disc 1/Folder.jpg` | cover art (33 KB) |
| `Disc 1/AlbumArtSmall.jpg` | thumbnail (6 KB) |

### Disc 2 — Bonus Tracks & Remixes (10 tracks)

| File | Size |
|---|---:|
| `Disc 2/01 - Showdown Below My Sombrero.mp3` | 5.8 MB |
| `Disc 2/02 - Dig Your Own Hole.mp3` | 10.2 MB |
| `Disc 2/03 - Atimot Ot Edo.mp3` | 2.7 MB |
| `Disc 2/04 - Two Mirrors.mp3` | 6.4 MB |
| `Disc 2/05 - Somebody That I Used To Know (Bibio Remix).mp3` | 11.4 MB |
| `Disc 2/06 - Somebody That I Used To Know (Gang Colours Remix).mp3` | 7.8 MB |
| `Disc 2/07 - Somebody That I Used To Know (Mphazes Remix).mp3` | 11.7 MB |
| `Disc 2/08 - Somebody That I Used To Know (4FRNT Remix).mp3` | 12.3 MB |
| `Disc 2/09 - Eyes Wide Open (PVT Remix).mp3` | 9.7 MB |
| `Disc 2/10 Eyes Wide Open (Alien Delon Remix).mp3` | 13.5 MB |
| `Disc 2/Folder.jpg` | cover art (33 KB) |
| `Disc 2/AlbumArtSmall.jpg` | thumbnail (6 KB) |

**Total**: 26 files · ~190 MB of audio + 78 KB of cover art.

---

## 🔗 Direct Streaming URLs

Each file in this bucket can be streamed or downloaded directly via the Hugging Face `resolve` URL pattern:

```
https://huggingface.co/buckets/R-Kentaren/Making-Mirrors/resolve/main/<path>
```

Examples:

- 🎧 Album cover: [`Disc 1/Folder.jpg`](https://huggingface.co/buckets/R-Kentaren/Making-Mirrors/resolve/main/Disc%201/Folder.jpg)
- 🎧 Lead single: [`Disc 1/03 - Somebody That I Used To Know.mp3`](https://huggingface.co/buckets/R-Kentaren/Making-Mirrors/resolve/main/Disc%201/03%20-%20Somebody%20That%20I%20Used%20To%20Know.mp3)
- 🎧 Album opener: [`Disc 1/01 - Making Mirrors.mp3`](https://huggingface.co/buckets/R-Kentaren/Making-Mirrors/resolve/main/Disc%201/01%20-%20Making%20Mirrors.mp3)
- 🎧 Album closer: [`Disc 1/12 - Bronte.mp3`](https://huggingface.co/buckets/R-Kentaren/Making-Mirrors/resolve/main/Disc%201/12%20-%20Bronte.mp3)
- 🎧 Bibio remix: [`Disc 2/05 - Somebody That I Used To Know (Bibio Remix).mp3`](https://huggingface.co/buckets/R-Kentaren/Making-Mirrors/resolve/main/Disc%202/05%20-%20%20Somebody%20That%20I%20Used%20To%20Know%20(Bibio%20Remix).mp3)

---

## 📜 Credits & Licensing

- **All music written, arranged, produced, engineered, mixed, and performed by Wally De Backer**, except where noted.
- **Featured vocals on "Somebody That I Used to Know"**: Kimbra (Kimbra Johnson).
- **Featured vocals on "In Your Light"**: Luke Smith.
- **Featured vocals on "Smoke and Mirrors"**: Jules Grandin.
- **Mastered by William Bowden** at King Willy Sound, Sydney.
- **Original label**: Samples 'n' Seconds Records / Eleven: A Music Company (Australia/NZ).
- **International label**: Island Records / Universal Republic.
- **Cover art design**: Wally De Backer, based on a painting by his father, **Frank De Backer**.

All audio rights in this bucket belong to **Gotye (Wally De Backer)** and the respective rights holders (Samples 'n' Seconds / Eleven: A Music Company / Island Records / Universal). This bucket is maintained as a **personal archival copy** of the 2-disc special edition. If you enjoy this music, please **support the artist** by purchasing the album through official channels — [gotye.com](https://www.gotye.com), [Bandcamp](https://gotye.bandcamp.com), your local record store, or your preferred streaming service.

---