Mess Esque is an Australian duo who sound like they literally dreamed themselves into being, made up of Helen Franzmann (McKisko) and Mick Turner (Dirty Three, Tren Brothers). The two enjoy moving at an unhurried pace, but what: here’s their third album in less than five years! Jay Marie, Comfort Me releases March 28, 2025 — the lead single “Take Me To Your Infinite Garden” is out today with a music video by Charlie Hillhouse.

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.

Jay Marie, Comfort Me feels a hemisphere away from Mess Esque’s first efforts, and a whole new atmospheric level above. The duo began as a correspondence course in 2020, swapping tracks remotely between Melbourne and Brisbane to experiment with pairing Mick’s guitar, keys and loops with Helen’s ruminative vocals. Their third effort arrives after the two actualised into the same space — that is, touring and performing together! — but they’ve continued the absentee ballot as before, collaborating from some 800 miles apart to write another great album. One with an edge… rocking, we daresay! 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 Mick’s ol’ Dirty Three partner-in-crime, Jim White.

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. Mess Esque push themselves into more vivid states of being — and therefore, us — on March 28, 2025.