Newsbeat

By Kev Geoghegan Radio 1 music reporter

Australian Beck-a-like Gotye has announced a UK tour in September.

The singer songwriter, who blends Avalanches and DJ Shadow-style sampling with catchy hooks, will play six dates starting at Bristol's Thekla on 8 September.

Born Wally De Backer in Belgium but raised in Australia, Gotye releases his debut UK album, Like Drawing Blood, this week.

It is actually his second full length album back home and won him the Aussie equivalent of the Mercury Prize as well as the equivalent of a Brit Award - the ARIA for best male artist in September 2007.

Not bad considering it was recorded in his bedroom.

Speaking from his home in Melbourne, he told Newsbeat: "It is very sample based music. I collect a lot of old records and sample breaks and loops and try to consistently chop them up beyond recognition and make them into my own sound.

"I call it sampled alt-pop."

Like Drawing Blood

No two songs on the album sound the same, from funky opening track The Only Way, with its slightly mysterious middle-eastern feel to the out Motown soul of the brilliantly titled Learnalilgivinanlovin.

Heart's A Mess and Puzzle With A Piece Missing hark back to Portishead's Dummy-era and Tricky's Maxinquaye trip-hop.

The Only Thing I Know wouldn't sound out of place alongside a New Order collection, though he puts a distorted spin on the lyrics.

Night Drive, however, conjures up an image of warm Balearic sunsets.

Gotye (pronounced like the designer, Jean Paul Gaultier) agreed: "I try to listen to a wide range of music.

Gotye. Don't hate him because he likes Phil Collins

His growing record collection was boosted when an elderly neighbour died and her husband showed up at Gotye's door with boxes and boxes of vinyl.

He said: "It was a bit weird actually, he was a little bit depressed and he said, 'I know you're a musician and I've been hearing your band rehearsing for the past three or four years.

"I think my wife's record collection would be better in your hands than in mine.'

"So, he handed me about 400 records."

Phil Collins

What is perhaps more disturbing than profiteering from an elderly lady's demise, is that Gotye claims to be a Phil Collins fan.

Trying to defend himself, he said: "Maybe I should have never mentioned that.

"It's probably an inevitable comparison because I'm a drummer who became a singer. So, I think I made the mistake of saying once when someone told me, 'Oh yeah, he's great.'

"But I do respect him as a musician and a programmer and writer of pop."

Tour dates:

• Bristol Thekla (8 September)

• London Scala (9 September)

• Manchester Academy 3 (11 September)

• Glasgow King Tuts Wah Wah Hut (13 September)

• Leeds Cockpit (14 September)

• Brighton Komedia (15 September)

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