Each song is a world unto itself, but the techniques that he developed to craft the sound using both a wide variety of live instruments as well as the sampling of live instruments and recorded vinyl and turning those into virtual instruments, tie the album together.

FORBES: Startup Lessons from Gotye: Don't Become Somebody That You Used To Know

"We are very interested in music where you have real instruments on stage and virtual sound sources, which can be coming directly from the computer or transformed from the real-time recording of instruments onstage, " he says.

NPR: IRCAM: The Quiet House Of Sound

At the same time, it generates a picture of the instruments' progress through the virtual tissue for him to see.

ECONOMIST: What the surgeon saw . . .