Photo by Matt Johnson Sure two-time ARIA winner Matt Corby may look like he’s high on mung bean salad, fresh out of the surf and living in some commune where everyone votes on whether to discipline a neighbour for referring to a companion animal as a pet. But it’s all a con, right? After two top five albums (his debut, Telluric, a #1; last year’s Rainbow Valley #4) he probably lives in an inner-city high rise and goes to bed in leather pants while listening to Van Halen. But

MATT CORBY Rainbow Valley (Island/Universal) If this album had been made by some beardy boffin in Laurel Canyon, producer for the stars and offsider to legends, everyone would be calling it a mystic pop gem and all the cool kids would be devouring it. Solution? Don’t tell them it’s a young Australian who played everything on it and knows how to write a pop song too, just watch them get excited as they get into it. Funky when you least expect it, dreamy, groovy (both in its mu

He’s a polite chap that Matt Corby. On our way to a couple of seats on the balcony overlooking the Eastern suburbs of Sydney Corby drops down to pick up a couple of cigarette butts. They were his, he reveals, his face a little guilty. Sure, but no one would have made him pick them up; that’s what A&R is for isn’t it? As we sit down he pulls out his tobacco pouch, just enough breeze around to suggest it won’t be blowing my way, but even so he makes a point of checking with me