MICK TURNER & HELEN FRANZMANN OF MESS ESQUE
Accomplished artists are so because of their tireless work and pursuit of new challenges and experiences. Nothing could be truer than that of Mess Esque and the partnership between Mick Turner and Helen Franzmann. After a staggering forty-year-long career with some of Australia’s most iconic outfits including The Dirty Three, Mick’s reputation precedes him. Helen who has released three albums over the past twelve years has in her own right delivered some startling work. And it was Helen’s last record and industry connections that brought the two together to produce Mess Esque’s achingly beautiful self-titled record.
In order to better understand the collaboration between Mick and Helen and that of Mess Esque, it is important to unearth how the project came to be. To elaborate on its inception Mick explains. “I had been working on a solo instrumental album, and at some point felt that this music was crying out for vocals, I wanted to find a vocalist for some sort of collaboration. Our mutual friend Nick Huggins put me in touch with Helen and we started corresponding remotely, this was late 2019, I sent music and she started writing vocal ideas. We initially planned to record later in 2020.” Helen goes on to elaborate “We had both worked with Nick Huggins on our prior records. Mick sent through some tracks and I wandered around listening to them for a few months before sending any ideas through. It was a slow process to begin with. Once I set up some recording gear in my home in Brisbane it all started pouring quickly down the microphone to him in Melbourne.”
With the connection made it was then a case of what to do with the project. Was there an overarching mission for Mess Esque as a combined outfit and what would Mick and Helen each want to achieve from it? Mick explains how the project initially took shape in the form of BSR records reaching out to him. “Early 2020 BSR records asked me to do an ‘ambient’ album for their “Private Eye” series - recordings from artists in lockdown - and they had a grant and needed something by May 2020. I didn’t really know how to do ambient but I said yes and thought it would be perfect for this new collaboration, I wanted to make a dance album which is something I’d been wanting to do for awhile, I mean, how good can a record ever be if it doesn’t make you want to dance?” A point that is hard to argue but for Helen as the primary vocal contributor, the task posed a different set of challenges. “With a set date for BSR I started recording ideas around the concept of an ambient album. ‘Sweetspot’ and ‘Jupiter’ came from these earlier recordings and Mick and I were pretty excited about what was happening. From there we wrote probably another fifteen songs, all with different incarnations due to the nature of the to and fro way we were collaborating. There are many prior versions of the songs you hear on the albums.” This is surely to be expected when working on a conceptual ambient record, coupled with the difficulties of remote interactions yet often something new is comprised of older parts.
In understanding how the DNA of Mick and Helen’s respective previous outfits had a bearing on Mess Esque, Mick begins by saying. “What I discovered early on in music was the joy of improvising, later Dirty Three was a great vehicle for this, all the players need to understand they should go where it feels right without fear or compromise and when it works you’re all in the same boat and you’re going somewhere worthwhile, a lot of these Mess Esque songs came from Helen and I building on improvisations because there was so little time to meet the deadline for the ‘ambient’ album, no chance for much consideration, I was like – “here’s a 2 chord loop with some improv guitar melodies, can you write a vocal over it and we’ll go from there.” Helen in turn would send me acapella vocal improvisations that I would then make backing instrumentation for.” As for Helen’s take on the subject. “Just prior to meeting Mick I’d been collaborating with different musicians on songs for my solo project McKisko, both live and in the studio. My previous albums had sparsely layered instrumentation where I played a lot of the instruments, so this had been a new way of writing for me and there was an unlocking of sorts happening. I was in a good place to work on something like this with Mick. It was a total joy.”
From disparate solo artists to a melded couple, the musicality of Mess Esque is exquisite. The atmospheric sonics produced by the pair is something very special and equally special is understanding how Mick and Helen individually hone their craft so as to bring their collective best to the table. Detailing the approach and methodology towards crafting each track and the processes involved to produce the fusion, Mick speaks for the duo when saying. “From these improvisations, Helen would add vocal takes to my noodling’s, I’d find chords for her acapella (all of this is happening remotely, in reality we are 2000 miles apart) and I did some collaging, cut / copy / pasting, moving things around until it all started taking shape. Then send it back to Helen and she would add some new vocal parts, make suggestions etc. and so on until we were both happy. It became our method of composing and recording these songs, we stumbled into this way of working by accident almost, through just working with the practicality of the situation, the time constraints stopped any chance of overthinking and to be honest we were both surprised at how much we liked what we were ending up with. We kept working and the ideas kept coming, it became very prolific process, we made the BSR “Dream #12” album the Mess Esque self-titled album and pretty much another album’s worth of songs, (not quite finished, that will be our next album.) in the space of a year.” The tyranny of distance clearly was not an insurmountable obstacle considering the quantity of music the pair produced in such a short period of time.
The interplay between Mick’s music and Helen’s lyrics is a fascinating one considering Mick had to musically interpret Helen’s diary/dream state lyrics with the sensitivity they deserve and Helen needed to craft lyrics that were sonically tangible for Mick to work on. To explain this dynamic Helen begins by saying. “It was different for each song. The lyrics and melody for songs like ‘Jupiter’ and ‘Take it Outside’ were really clear from the moment I tried singing over Mick’s initial tracks. The tracks had such space within them allowing for my vocals without the feeling that I was intruding. Each track had its own distinct mood. There are physical spaces that each song inhabits for me lyrically… like the creek for ‘Take it Outside’ and my bedroom for ‘Big Old Blue’. And then there were the many improvised vocal tracks for Mick to work with as well. Mick would cut them, layer them, rearrange them, play further instrumentals beneath them. Sometimes he’d change the whole form of a song and then I’d start over with a completely different idea. It was exciting to receive a new file and hear where he'd taken it for me to then work further. Mostly we both felt when it was going in the right direction and if not, we’d change it up.” For Mick his heartfelt compliments and honest insight about how he worked with Helen’s vocals are as beautiful as they are academic. “The vocals were beautifully delivered, engaging and mysterious, and inspiring. Editing and crafting came easily because everything was sounding so good. It all came very naturally, nothing felt forced.”
It may be somewhat philosophical but certainly worth enquiring as to whether this record was one that Mick and Helen could have only produced now in the latter part of their careers, and how reflective it is of their current world views? For Mick, “Everything that has happened before has led to this point, I think this record could only have ever been made now.” And for Helen “All of this work is nestled in a personal historical narrative that is situated in the present. It doesn’t really feel linear.” It must be noted however that their work is artistry as much as it is purely musical. The videoclips ‘Sweetspot’ & ‘Take It Outside’ echo that point and in conceptualising the entire project, it is fascinating to enquire if Mick and Helen see the project in terms of the visual, the auditory, or in design aesthetics. Helen sums it up neatly by saying. “It was only once the records were completed that there was room for any ideas around the visual/design elements. Even a band name needed to be decided. The video for ‘Sweetspot’ was made by filmmaker Charlie Hillhouse in Brisbane. We weren’t involved apart from doing as he asked (although that was my actual dream I talk about in it). Mick created the clip for ‘Take it Outside’ with found footage and a video that was filmed with his family performing in the garage. I think he made it in a day, running it through an old television and editing it all. The video for ‘Wake up to Yesterday’ was filmed by my sister in one take in front of my parent’s house in Brisbane. Mick also pulled the final edit of that one together with some footage of himself, overlaying and cutting bits. I guess it all has a similar thread to it in that we were figuring things out from separate cities. The ‘Jupiter’ video was made by artist Lucy Dyson. ‘Big Old Blue’ by Denny Ryan. These are all people who either Mick or I respected and wanted to work with. Mick paints and sculpts and has a very large body of work as an artist. The cover of the Mess Esque album is one of his paintings.”
With such a body of work under their belts, it begs the question as to what creative force continues to ignite their musical flames that burn within propelling them ever forward in the pursuit of writing, recording, collaborating, and performing? For Helen, it is immersive as she comments. “I lose myself in it, it’s like nothing else. I’m chasing that feeling, and the feeling that is the puzzle of a song coming together.” And for Mick “I think as an artist, it's a journey, I’m searching for something , I don’t know what it is and I have to keep going, to look around the next corner because it might be there.” That endless search and invigorating feeling that comes from producing, experimenting, and performing is an internal drive that never ceases.
This is true for their upcoming tour of America and how they intend on replicating on stage the sounds and sentiments of an album that was created in a relative place of solace to a live audience on the other side of the planet. Mick honestly points out “Due to the lockdowns and the distanced physical separation we’ve only just recently managed to string a decent number of rehearsals and live shows together, the live incarnation of Mess Esque is still in its infancy and very much an evolving beast.” Helen agrees by saying “It’s different every performance at this point, and dependent on which songs we choose to play. We wrote some very long songs, ‘Jupiter’ alone is eleven minutes. We’ve had different people play with us, all bringing their greatness to it. But yes, the evolving beast.” It will be a challenge that they are undoubtedly up for having already overcome so many obstacles in the past two years.
Having performed with so many different musicians and artists over the years, it is curious to hear from the pair if during that time if any words of wisdom have been spoken to them that really resonated and in turn altered the way they approach their music? As Mick recalls “Way back, Steve Miller, guitarist in the Moodists said to me when working on a new song I asked him what chords he was playing “I’m playing this chord and then this chord” (showing unrecognizable chord shapes).” Showing how dogged and stern some musicians can be, Helen had her own version of tough love which ultimately proved to be an invitation she couldn’t refuse. “Someone said to me once (as a criticism) that ‘the world of music isn’t real’. I liked that and stepped in further.”
In what may be a one-off project, an unpredictable American tour, and an uncertain future for Mess Esque, what is guaranteed is the phenomenal record they have cemented. Great works do not necessarily need to be ongoing. Simply being able to savour a moment, a time and a place that is forever enshrined in one record is a wonderful thing as this album by Mick and Helen attests to.
