Matt Corby

Matt Corby stands out as an adult alternative singer/songwriter distinguished by his light vocal rasp, soulful delivery, and bright melodies. A former runner-up on Australian Idol, he later reached the summit of the ARIA album chart. His 2007 run on the program led to the 2011 EP Into the Flame, which landed in the Top Three, followed by his number-one debut album Telluric in 2016. Although Rainbow Valley, the Top Five-charting 2018 follow-up, drew on jazz-funk and orchestral pop textures, Corby performed every instrument himself. The 2022 floods prompted him to track his third album, Everything’s Fine, released in 2023, while his family sheltered in the studio.

Matthew John Corby entered the world in 1990 in Oyster Bay, a Sydney suburb, where gospel music formed his earliest listening and a taste for Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young developed later. Local gigs around Sydney and tours with a church band preceded his 2007 audition for Australian Idol, on which he placed second in the fifth season. Scorpio Music issued his debut EP, the intimate, acoustic-guitar-centered Song For…, in 2009, after which he moved to London, England, and joined the Communion roster.

Communion put out the EPs My False and Transition to Colour in 2010. Several of his compositions soon appeared in American and Australian television programs such as Home and Away and Brothers and Sisters. He also played SXSW in the United States, performed across Australia and the U.K., and supported Elbow on select British dates. Into the Flame, a fourth EP with a bluesier tone and more assertive vocals, surfaced at the end of 2011. By late 2012 the release had earned multiple platinum certifications in Australia after peaking at number three. The 2013 single “Resolution,” drawn from the same-titled EP, reached the Top Five on the singles chart and received an ARIA for Song of the Year. Live on the Resolution Tour, another EP, followed before year’s end.

Corby returned in October 2015 with the soulful single “Monday,” taken from his first full-length album Telluric, which Universal Music Australia and Atlantic released in March 2016. After the record charted in the U.K. and New Zealand and topped the Australian album chart, he launched a world tour. Retiring to his New South Wales residence, he became a father and began shaping his next album. Recorded at Music Farm Studios in Byron Bay with Corby supplying all parts—strings, drums, synths, and additional instruments—the resulting Rainbow Valley appeared on Universal Music Australia in late 2018. The following year he collaborated with Tash Sultana on the single “Talk It Out” and with rappers Triple One and Kwame on “So Easy.”

His third studio album took shape against the severe early-2022 flooding in Queensland and New South Wales. On the day tracking was slated to begin at his own Rainbow Valley Studios, neighbors rescued Corby, his son, and his then-pregnant wife from their home. After aiding neighbors with supplies via small watercraft and completing emergency repairs, he started sessions with Chris Collins (Gang of Youths, Middle Kids) while his family stayed in the studio. Island Records issued the finished album Everything’s Fine in March 2023.