Mess Esque - Jay Marie, Comfort Me

Mess Esque is an Australian duo who sound like they literally dreamed themselves into being, and might even still be in the dream that made them! Helen Franzmann (McKisko) and Mick Turner (Dirty Three, Tren Brothers) initially partnered on Mess Esque’s shared inner plane circa 2020. Since then, they’ve taken their preferred path — the one less traveled — at an unhurried pace. Yet Jay Marie, Comfort Me is their third album in less than five years, and the new music feels a hemisphere away from their first efforts: a whole new atmospheric level above, with greater depths to descend into as well. All hail the dreamers — they travel in abstract shapes that the rest of us don’t even know how to imagine.

Mess Esque first launched as a correspondence course. The two swapped tracks between Melbourne and Brisbane, exper-imentally pairing Mick’s guitar, keys and loops with Helen’s ruminative vocals, in search of a dance floor hit. It was in vain; they didn’t chart there. But the relationship of their sounds immediately clicked, and they wrote songs and songs — all without ever meeting face to face! — leaving the equivalent of a ghostly fingerprint on the production lens, with warm beams of music glowing through.

They released Dream #12 through Australian label Bedroom Suck in April 2021, with a self-titled album on Drag City following six months later. Then it was time to actualize in the same spaces for some touring: Australia, the US, UK, Europe, and New Zealand. It was a whole different way of hearing and seeing for Mess Esque, bound to affect the approach for their junior album, yeah?

But no, instead of getting themselves together in one room and rocking it to high
heavens, Mick and Helen retreated to their safe distances, some 800 miles apart,
and continued the absentee ballet as before. The exquisite corpse-style songwriting
seems to suit ‘em! And us too. And wait, what’s this? Jay Marie, Comfort Me has an
edge to it: that savage grace that comes from actually drawing breath and stepping
up in the witness of others. Rocking, we daresay — nothing else to call songs like
“Crow’s Ash Tree” and “Take Me To Your Infinite Garden”, wow! — without ever losing
the sweet ramble of their inception. The process of becoming, in all its aspects, has
made Mess Esque’s efforts ever more visceral and incisive, their music billowing up
to the skies while drawing close to the bone in the same moment.