STACK #258 April 2026

MUSIC FEATURE

visit jbhifi.com.au/stack

MAGICAL M att Corby is an old soul man in a young man’s body. The Aussie artist admits he doesn’t listen to much modern music. He’s like a ’70s soul singer who’s been teleported to 2026. “A lot of the music I do absorb is a lot of older music, and a lot of real instrumentation,” Matt explains. “I’m always just trying to showcase what I think is possible in modern music.” Matt’s previous album, the ironically titled Everything’s Fine , followed floods, fatherhood, and a life-threatening tumour. This album was Matt Corby releases a masterful fourth album.

CHART FACT

Matt Corby’s first three albums have all hit the Top 10.

Matt Corby

Photo credit: Maclay Heriot

shaped by the passing of his partner’s mother, who died of pancreatic cancer. “There are all these conflicting things, and you are analysing your own life and the timespan of it. You are questioning how you choose to spend your time alive.” The resultant record is “very reflective of where

rewired my brain and outlook on life”. With the help of producers Dann Hume and Chris Collins, Matt is shooting for tracks that are timeless. “There are songs that everyone is losing their sh-t over right now,” he points out, “that you probably can’t listen to again in a year; my goal is beyond that timeframe.” “So, tell all your big ideas,” he sings on the record. “We could make it real.” And that’s exactly what he has done on Tragic Magic . Jeff Jenkins

Tragic Magic comes a decade after Matt Corby’s debut album, Telluric , which topped the charts in March 2016. TELLURIC TURNS TEN

Tragic

Magic by Matt Corby

my life is at right now; how my family, my kids are the most important thing and watching them grow up has completely CRUEL INTENTIONS is out Apr 17 via Island Australia After supportingTaylor Swift, Olivia Rodrigo, and Sam Fender, England’s Holly Humberstone is ready for the big time.

I f Air Supply hadn’t got there first, Holly Humberstone could have called her second album “Love and Other Bruises”. “The record explores love as beautiful and inherently painful,” the 26-year-old English artist reveals. She ended up calling the album Cruel World , noting that the second single, To Love Somebody , sums up “the tension of the record”. “I wanted to capture that contradiction,” she explains. “To love

Cruel World

by Holly Humberstone is out Apr 10 via Universal

somebody is to hurt somebody and to lose somebody; well, at least you got to love somebody. In order to feel extreme happiness, you have to know extreme sadness.”

FUN FACT

Holly Humberstone

CHART FACT

Photo credit: Silken Weinberg

Holly Humberstone grew up in Grantham, which is home to 45,000 people. UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was born there, as was the psychic Doris Stokes, who became famous in Australia via The Don Lane Show . And the scientist who discovered gravity, Isaac Newton, went to school in Grantham. WHERE DO YOU COME FROM?

Holly started the “Fifth Sister Swap”, encouraging her fans to swap clothes to combat fast fashion. If you bring along an item of clothing, you can take an item of clothing.

To Love Somebody followed Die Happy , a song about “the danger in loving someone so much you’d do anything for them”. “So, hit the gas,” Holly sings. “I want it fast, want it reckless. Now all that matters is your name on my necklace.” Jeff Jenkins

Holly’s debut album, Paint My Bedroom Black , hit number five in the UK but did not reach the Australian Top 40.

36 APRIL 2026

jbhifi.com.au