Music / Features
Track by Track:
Mess Esque - Dream #12
Mess Esque - Dream #12
The debut release from Mess Esque - the collaborative project between Dirty Three's Mick Turner and Helen Franzmann who makes music as McKisko - is a surreptitious journey through the hardships of being human. We asked Helen Franzmann to give us some hints on how they came to be.
Brisbane-based label Bedroom Suck are pretty good at putting out the things that exist on the margins. The wistful dreamers who can break your heart with a guitar, if only you’ll come see them play in a living room. With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the label took it upon themselves to document music being made in isolation with a series of releases named Private Eyes, and the final release is a doozy. A collaboration between Mick Turner of Dirty Three fame and Helen Franzmann, aka McKisko, Dream #12 is a slowburning, yet, deeply affecting affair. The pairing is truly a blissful combination, Mick’s exploratory guitar playing provides a rich landscape for Helen’s tender lyricism and fragility. The whole thing threatens to fall over at any moment, but manages to keep trucking along with determination, punctuated with sparse, improvisatory drum arrangements. The songs feel so organic you’d never guess they pulled it all together by recording each part on their own and sending files back and forth across state borders.
Unpacking these songs may take some work; the sonic landscape is dense and the lyrics can be cryptic. There’s an overbearing sense of melancholy, yet listening to Mess Esque feels like doing the hard work of processing life’s difficult moments. A sign of life pushing through the cracks in the concrete slab of despair that was 2020. If you’re ever looking for something jangly and vulnerable to cry to, give Mess Esque a go.
Now that Dream #12 has been out for a month, we asked Helen to walk us through it, or rather, further the intrigue, track by track.
Unpacking these songs may take some work; the sonic landscape is dense and the lyrics can be cryptic. There’s an overbearing sense of melancholy, yet listening to Mess Esque feels like doing the hard work of processing life’s difficult moments. A sign of life pushing through the cracks in the concrete slab of despair that was 2020. If you’re ever looking for something jangly and vulnerable to cry to, give Mess Esque a go.
Now that Dream #12 has been out for a month, we asked Helen to walk us through it, or rather, further the intrigue, track by track.
Big Old Blue
It's a very good thing to step outside of yourself now and again.
It's a very good thing to step outside of yourself now and again.
Listen The Snow Is Falling
Mick heard this beautiful song as a child on a John and Yoko 7 inch. The only cover we have recorded.
Make It Waves
One of the first songs we wrote. Imagining urban traffic noise as ocean waves. Gentle reminder to have patience.
Dream #12
This song was a completely different thing initially, slow and sparse. It was flipped instrumentally and became what it is. Many nights back and forth on this one.
False Mirror
A hot Brisbane day laying on cold floor tiles beneath big life decisions.
Mick heard this beautiful song as a child on a John and Yoko 7 inch. The only cover we have recorded.
Make It Waves
One of the first songs we wrote. Imagining urban traffic noise as ocean waves. Gentle reminder to have patience.
Dream #12
This song was a completely different thing initially, slow and sparse. It was flipped instrumentally and became what it is. Many nights back and forth on this one.
False Mirror
A hot Brisbane day laying on cold floor tiles beneath big life decisions.
Dream #12 is out now through Bedroom Suck Records, as part of their Private Eyes series - head to mckisko.bandcamp.com to purchase the album on limited vinyl.
