The video was completed early last year and has garnered several awards Down Under: it combines 3D animation with photographic backgrounds, and character design that draws at least in part on one iconic music video.

"Gotye had seen the music video that I made for Smog," Cook explains. "He originally wanted a video for another single, however after some discussion we both agreed that Hearts a Mess would be the best track on the album to make an animated video for."

His concept sees the artist transformed into the caretaker of the earth, who has given up on the planet and decides to prepare it for burial. "The image of a dancing pied piper kept popping up in my head, so this formed the basis of the caretaker character."
Then illustrator Duncan Irving created this and the video's other extremely long-legged characters - influenced partly by Gerald Scarfe's goose-stepping hammers in the video for Pink Floyd's Another Brick In The Wall.
Meanwhile Cook and cinematographer Barnaby Norris worked on timelapse plates for the backgrounds. "I wanted the backgrounds to have the feel of nightime timelapse photography," he says. "I also wanted to achieve fast moving shadows and retain a high level of detail in the images."

The single is released in the UK on May 26.

Watch 'Goyte's Heart's A Mess by Brendan Cook' here