Mess Esque, the collaboration between Helen Franzmann (McKisko) and Mick Turner (Dirty Three, Tren Brothers), follow up on their self-titled debut 2021 album (reviewed by me here) with the astronomically beautiful ‘Jay Marie, Comfort Me’. Released through Drag City Records and Remote Control Records, it’s a stunning collection of dreamy shimmering tracks that glow in the firmament.
From the opening track ‘Light Showroom with its woozy languid feel and sixties flavour to the final track, the crackling haunting beauty of ‘No Snow’, each track is imperious and studied, infused with crystalline guitars that sparkle and crumble with delicacy, gilded by Franzmann’s velvet vocals that float like a silken veil in the breeze throughout.
Highlights include ‘Take Me To Your Infinite Garden’ which is a fuzzy, ominous fugue that’s hypnotic and thrilling, driven by the contrast between the buzz-saw guitars and thundering drums with Franzmann’s dreamy ethereal vocals that turn into a piercing lament soaked with melancholy. It’s a deliciously dark dream with a gothic thrill.
‘Crow’s Ash Tree’ is a visceral track with its chunky guitars and hammond organ bed. Franzmann’s dreamy words We could see your inner organs / they were jellyfish blue float above a kaleidoscope of sonic colours, a shuffling precision. The music video was directed by Denny Ryan; Franzmann’s niece, Sofia Carroll, made the playful masks that the band adorns in their unfettered group dance.
‘Let Me Know You’ includes the devotional stark lyrics let me lick your armpit, and is an exquisite raw and unadorned track that floats simply on a bed of synths, absent of guitars or percussion, like a contril in the sky.
There’s a child-like innocence in the expression, almost delivered in a hypnotic tone of a nursery rhyme with Franzmann’s vocals naked and raw, close and intimate, sensual.
The track comes with a video by Denny Ryan which is just as gentle and intimate, looping Helen’s gentle movements side-by-side to form a tableau in motion.
In ‘Armour Your Amor’ there is a frail vulnerability in both the delicate vocals and the haunting instrumentation – the song apparates and floats in the ether like some sort of spectral object. Almost intangible, the song circulates and streams its way in your consciousness with a graceful elegance.
Along with Keeley Young and Kishore Ryan from the live band, the album features cellist Stephanie Arnold and a couple of Australia’s living legends of percussion: Bree van Reyk and Turner’s Dirty Three partner-in-crime, Jim White. You can get the album here and through the link below.
Mess Esque are about to embark on tour finalising album launches in Australia and heading off to Europe – details here and below.
Castlemaine 25/4 @lachlandentonfurnishings
Melbourne 26/4 @leahseniormusic + @kisses5eva
Archie’s Creek 27/4 @piggietailsinspace
Brisbane 2/5 @egf.wav + @keeleyyoung
Mess Esque European Tour Dates
w/ Bonnie “Prince” Billy
May 10th @ Het Depot– Leuven, BE
May 11th @ Arenberg – Antwerp, BE
May 12th @ Doornroosje – Nijmegen, NL
May 13th @ Paradiso – Amsterdam, NL
May 15th @ Wilde Westen – Kortrijk, BE
May 16th @ Le Tetris – Le Havre, FR
May 17th @ Stereolux – Nantes, FR
May 18th @ La Cigale – Paris, FR
Feature Photograph: Helen Franzmann & Mick Turner
