Mess Esque, the heavenly duo of Helen Franzmann and Mick Turner, have released their much awaited third record Jay Marie, Comfort Me. The album is a bold third missive from Helen and Mick, building out the Australian duo’s handmade, openhearted soul into new dimensions with the help of live band members Keeley Young and Kishore Ryan, cellist Stephanie Arnold, and percussionists Bree van Reyk and Jim White (Dirty Three).
The record arrives after the release of singles ‘Take Me To Your Infinite Garden’ and ‘Let Me Know You’ which captured hearts and minds everywhere.
On ‘Take Me To Your Infinite Garden’, Mess Esque attack the eternal enigma of knowing, and the need to know, with waves of mounting compulsion. Mick’s pounding toms, mud-toned guitars and spectral organ roll and tumble with Helen’s fractured lyrical wonderings to create a creature equal parts fever dream and prayer ritual. The music video blocks out a ceremonious dance with monochromatic slices of life and rite; here, Mess Esque embody forbidden thirst with high-voltage ecstasy and enduring ambiguity.
With no guitars or drums anywhere in sight, just keyboards twinkling in stark space, Mess Esque assumed an improbable new form on ‘Let Me Know You’: the celestially curious star child, caught in the unfamiliar weight of a gravitational pull. Alone in a zone, Helen folkishly coos a few spare lines, taking us along on the first tender steps in guileless pursuit of desire. Dimensions flow past in an ever-fluxing sand painting, forming a gently glowing sonic haiku. Denny Ryan’s video is just as gentle and intimate, looping Helen’s gentle movements side-by-side to form a tableau in motion.
Jay Marie, Comfort Me reaches exciting new heights in the Mess Esque journey, propelling their uniquely twisted aural circus to a new level of danceability, exaltation and effect.
Release: March 28, 2025, Forgotten Song Records/Drag City Records/Remote Control