Artist:     Matt Corby

Album:     Telluric

Label:     Universal

Release Date:     03/11/2016

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Matt Corby may have a deep wealth of music to draw from in the realm of cosmic and psych-soul, yet Telluric is anything but a weak iteration of the genre. Corby’s debut studio album grooves with the best of them – indigenous, urban and utterly extraterrestrial all the same.

Corby is as cool-headed as he is an evident martyr on Telluric, seemingly sending dispatches from a locale stricken with zero gravity. Akin to Corby’s recording process wherein a self-exile to the hinterlands of Tweed led to a leap in his multi-instrumentalism, Corby’s process on the record places him somewhere unreachable. Nevertheless, it doesn’t stop him from incorporating copious amounts of elastic bass and irritated yet restrained flute jabs all the while fluttering above a rippling equator of vocals.

At times, the record plays like Hugh Masekela put through a hallucinatory filter, other times it’s akin to a musing in the margin of a young George Clinton. When Corby sings “Prince is going to save you/Wu-Tang might just save you/Rock n Roll won’t stage us,” there’s no denying that his creative consciousness is entirely specific, but he truly believes in some retribution via music for both the creator and listener.

Whether Telluric is merely an observation or a cautionary tale is undecided – it’s likely the jury is even out on Corby’s end. What the record does decidedly places Corby into great company of weirdo soul rockers.

– Jake Tully