The last time I spoke to Matt Corby, it was in celebration of his 2023 record, Everything’s Fine.

During that interview, he said something that stayed with me: Good music takes time to catch up to you. In our fast-paced world of mass consumption and instant gratification, that philosophy gave me something to think about in the way I listen to music.

As I’m writing this, I’ve had the time to sit with Corby’s latest album, Tragic Magic, for a few weeks now. What arrives is a sense of creative meditation and exploration, rhythmic expressions that lead into soulful affectations, and melodies that take you one way only to go another. Whether through sonic experimentations of intuitive lyricisms, Corby sees Tragic Magic as a site where performance takes precedence over perfection.

Tragic Magic - Matt Corby — Tragic Magic – Matt Corby

From the driving rhythms of “King of Denial” which – Corby shares – was kept very similar to the original demos, to the playful twangs of “Big Ideas,” and more introspective moments in “War To Love,” “Stained,” and “Sad Eyes” – Tragic Magic exhibits the best of what Corby does best: Maintaining the balance between technical precision, and soul that meets you where you are and demands to be felt.

Corby has been through a whirlwind of experiences since his last record. Many of these were life-changing, but his curiosity and artistry never wavered. Tragic Magic is a culmination of life at all its different chapters: Its end, its beginnings, and all the ones in between. Having experienced the loss of his partner’s mother – “a force” in their life, he says – to the transitory phases of fatherhood, Tragic Magic is a time capsule of impermanence, stillness, and sitting in discomfort.

Atwood Magazine sat down with Corby to discuss life since his last album, the conception of Tragic Magic, and the roles intention and soul have in his current process of making music.

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:: stream/purchase Tragic Magic here ::

:: connect with Matt Corby here ::

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A CONVERSATION WITH MATT CORBY

Atwood Magazine: Matt, I’m so excited to be speaking with you again! What have you been up to since we last spoke?

Matt Corby: I’ve been pretty much the same! Making records, running the studio. I’m glad this record is finished and out, we finished it a year ago, so it’s nice that it’s finally “away” from me. It’s been a very positive week so far post-release, and a good response.

It’s a gorgeous record. You’ve said it’s made up of many real-life experiences you had while making it. For me, I really feel like this title encapsulates how I’m feeling about the world right now. Can you tell me more about why you chose this name for the record, and what it means to you?

Matt Corby: I think the whole meaning of Tragic Magic is what life is. Most of what is good only comes from the bad. You can only know the good because you experienced the bad. My partner’s mum passed away, and she was a real light in our lives. I was thinking a lot about mortality and death. I was thankful that this person existed, and I was thinking about my own existence, and what I’m bringing to people’s lives. Obviously there’s no song called “Tragic Magic” but the title just popped in my head one night, and it just seemed right for what we were going through, and how we were honouring her life. It considers our own existence and what it means to be a living, breathing thing that gets to experience, have community, and create ourselves.

Matt Corby & ‘Everything’s Fine’: Growth, Introspection, and the Age of Social Media

:: INTERVIEW ::

I love what you said about the album “showcasing what’s possible,” can you expand on that?

Matt Corby: I feel like I’m always searching for where the line is on what I’m capable of doing. It’s like a journey to the outskirts of what I know is possible, just for me. I know there are things I’m good at, but I never do them. I always want to try things that I can’t always pull off and I always think it’d be so funny if I did. I think this record has a bit of both. I don’t listen to much modern music. I like a lot of stuff that I hear, but as a producer, there’s a lot of music that I hear and go “oh, that’s minimal effort.” I’m not trying to high-road anyone because I sometimes think that about my own music, but we’re in a funny age where a lot of people who aren’t musical can make it. We have computers, AI, all this stuff that makes you not need to be a musician or a singer, or have any production skill at all. And you can have a far better career than anyone who is a musical genius. It’s a funny time to be adding to the art form.

I know you said the vocals in “Know It All” were mostly kept the same from the first recording.

Matt Corby: To be honest, half of these songs didn’t change from the day we demo-ed them. They were just a really good day of writing. We’ll go in and re-track if we want to go into production mode. For “Know It All,” it was very soon after my partner’s mom passed away. There was a lot going on at home, it was very heavy and very sad. I had to go into the studio for something, I can’t remember what it was, but I was very overwhelmed and sat on the piano and hit record. I started playing those chords and mumbling a melody. When I played it back when I got into the control room, I really liked it. It felt heavy and felt really interesting. All these lyrics just started coming to me about what had happened over the last few days.

I don’t like hearing my voice on its own, so I like to stack them so I can listen back and think it’s Bon Iver [laughs]. I loved that song, I was really happy with that. When it came time to revisit that with the record, we decided not to re-track the vocals. Chris said he liked how messy and stacked it was, so we just did the outro with all the strings.

As a producer, performer, and vocalist, how do you keep that balance between feeling existing in the take, and perfection from a technical standpoint?

Matt Corby: My old self would pile drive it into the ground to try and get everything to sound perfect. The older I get the more I like that it’s not great. I can go, “that one has something to it, I can feel that I’m in the song.” It takes a bit of restraint to know when to stop, and not keep trying to make it better. But I’m getting better at the restraint part of it, and letting things live in their imperfection. And be happy that things are conveying a feeling.

Last time we spoke you said something that really stayed with me. Which was that good music often takes time to catch up to the listener. Is there a song on Tragic Magic that has grown with you over time?

Matt Corby: There’s a couple. When I first made “Big Ideas,” I didn’t get it. I didn’t know if I liked it. But that one kind of snuck up on me. “Sad Eyes” really snuck up on me as well. The more I hear it, the more I like it, it feels really good. So that one keeps getting better for me. Also “King of Denial” keeps getting better. I put it first because of the nice rolling guitar intro, but every time I put it on I still like it.

Has the feedback from people matched the songs you like?

Matt Corby: Never! [laughs] The songs that I like are never the ones anyone else likes. It’s always been like that for me. The songs that I like are always the ones people won’t talk about. [laughs]

“War To Love” is my favourite. Maybe because it’s been out the longest so I’ve been listening to it the longest.

Matt Corby: That’s good. I reckon it’s peaking now, so if you keep listening, the other ones might take its spot!

When do you get your best ideas? Is it when you’re not trying and in that ‘maker’ frame of mind? Or do you need to set more intentions beforehand?

Matt Corby: No. I feel like the more intent I have the more fucked up it gets. I get so affected by things I hear. Which is why I love being able to play lots of instruments. I can be like, “today I’m gonna start with a beat,” or I can play piano today. Whatever I’m drawn to in the studio, I’ll just start there.

I never have a plan, and I will always do something I know to do, then it’s like getting that out of your system. Then I go, “Okay what can I do that’s new, that will make me feel something?” Normally I’ll do something and this feeling comes over me, and I’ll be searching for how to encapsulate that through a song and incorporate other instruments into that. Sometimes it morphs into something you never thought of, and those are my favourite moments. I like that I went on a journey to find something, found it, and it created a feeling within me that I haven’t felt before in music. I’m just constantly chasing that everyday. Sometimes it gets weird, but I still had an awesome time doing it, and I learned so much. Because why would you put parameters on something that should be exploratory?

Soul music, as you said, has a key role to play in this record – but also in your musicianship and your journey as an artist. Can you talk more about that and what it means to you? Is it more of the genre, the technicalities, or more just the feeling?

Matt Corby: I think it’s the way soul singers communicate emotionally. I love the genre and the way it sounds, the musicianship it comes from, and what it draws from. But my job as the singer is to do the things that get you, and I don’t really get that from pop music. Every now and then a country or folk song will do it. But a soul singer can sing three words, and it makes you go in a puddle on the floor. I’ve always been drawn to that superpower they have as vocalists. That’s why I always loved it. And I think it’s such a broad spectrum of a genre. There’s so many offcuts of what soul means, how it sounds, and how it’s presented. I think it finds its way into all other types of music.

I grew up singing that stuff, I learned to sing through soul music when I was 8. I had a really great guitar and singing teacher, and it was always gospel and soul music that we would tackle. They were my benchmark of how I was going to present and shape my voice. A lot of singers can mimic other voices, but you kind of have to decide how you’re going to sound when you have that ability to sing well. Those were the things I decided on early.

Who or what is keeping you curious about music right now?

Matt Corby: I’m listening to a lot of instrumental music. I’m an Apple Music person, and the suggested things afterwards are so good. They have some really good string and horn arrangements that keep me going through the day. I’m a little in my own world with what tickles my fancy, but music is a funny thing – I have a really complicated relationship with it in general. I’m kind of a hater, which is really bad, but if I hear something I love I will just drill it into the ground and I want to know why I like it: Whether it’s the instruments or the melody or the way the melody moves through the chords, or just this combination of tonal choice and arrangements and harmonics.

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