Mess Esque: Jay Marie, Comfort Me

As Mess Esque, this decade has seen Brisbane singer, Helen Franzmann (McKisko), and Melbourne guitarist, Mick Turner (Dirty Three), form an alliance embedded in the dream-state.

The Mess Esque remit is all about the carefully plotted arrangement. Turner’s magical guitar virtuoso, moulded into fascinating shapes, while Franzmann’s voice is an instrument just as potent. Together their whimsical wanderings have led to some of the finest results in the dreamy post-rock stratum, led by their excellent 2021 debut, Dream #12, and a year later with the equally mesmerising Mess Esque.

On the duo’s third release, Jay Marie, Comfort Me, the stakes are higher. The title itself, in reference to Franzmann’s sister who unexpectedly passed away in her sleep last year, and the residue of the ensuing grief runs deep throughout these songs. The fragility and lingering pain of That Chair (“Jay Marie, comfort me / I’ll comfort you the same”), and the breezy post-rock of Crow’s Ash Tree, just two of the many passages that make this latest Mess Esque statement the most difficult to absorb.

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It’s not just the level of honesty that Franzmann conveys through these songs, but her performance as well. Reaching new emotional depths, so powerful, it stirs up the embers and forces you to acknowledge your own grief and torment from loved ones lost in the past.

Tracking back and opening song, Light Showroom, is perhaps the only song that resembles Mess Esque of the past, picking up where they left off from Mess Esque. Meandering dream-rock as Turner’s knotty guitars are guided by Franzmann’s sing-speak vocals.

Sonically, there’s also a noticeable shift. Lead single, Take Me To Your Infinite Garden and Armour Your Amor, snapshots where Mess Esque translate their live show to tape with feedback and percussion likened to a slow moving train. It’s largely down to live band members, Keeley Young and Kishore Ryan, who feature alongside cellist, Stephanie Arnold, percussionist, Bree van Reyk, and Turner’s eternal sparring partner in the Dirty Three’s Jim White.

Elsewhere, and while liminality has been a theme many artists have tackled over the past several years, Mess Esque find more meaning than any other. The cinematic, off-kilter blues of Liminal Space packed with emotive force with another reference to Franzmann’s recent loss (“One foot through the door / One hand on the gate“).

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It’s not the last, either. As Turner’s carefully picked guitar creates a sonic bedding as fragile as glass, on No Snow, Franzmann delivers something truly devastating. “You’re here again / So wipe away your tears and freshen up your face / You’re waiting on something you know won’t take place,” she sings, capturing the burning hell of bereavement where your mind feels like a warzone. So powerful, it’s one of those songs that brings a tear to the eye just by thinking about it.

While their past cosmic explorations saw them cover new ground, Mess Esque move even further beyond on Jay Marie, Comfort Me. Something more dynamic both in sound and theme, Franzmann’s performance, so brittle and heartfelt, that it’s hard not to listen to these songs without the company of a lump in the throat.

Mess Esque has always taken their listeners to safe, far-out places, but on Jay Marie, Comfort Me, as the dark clouds hover over them, Franzmann and Turner look closer to home, and by doing so they reveal stunning, new dimensions.

Jay Marie, Comfort Me is out now via Drag City. Purchase from Bandcamp.