Maximo Eximo

Five months pregnant with her first child when she toured stunning 2009 debut Glorio, Helen Franzmann – aka Brisbane artist McKisko – jokes that she's given birth to three children since: two baby boys and her sophomore album Eximo.

“I record more things on my phone than I used to,” she says of her creative schedule since Glorio. “I go to the place that used to be [Red Hill performance space] The Hangar one night a week so I can just sit with music there. It's cool. If I think about the way that I wrote my first album, I took a lot of time – I'd play the beginning of a song and then I might like it and just continue to play that for the entire day so it locked in and became something, whereas now I will record it on my phone when I catch it and I have to wait until the night that I have [for music] to go and finish it, so that's a really different process for me; it's a bit hard sometimes.”

An album that captures the beauty of those inspired moments enlarged by late night explorations, Eximo is stamped with Franzmann's sparse construction style yet layered with oodles of raw charm, not least her effortlessly clear and haunting vocal. It's a record that reveals and rewards with repeat listens; it's not an easy, packaged-for-radio effort – it feels like art.  

“[It's] got a bit more going on sonically,” Franzmann admits. “On Glorio the songs were simpler and there was more of a folk element; I was just playing them and [producer] Jamie [Trevaskis] was just catching them. This album's more produced; we've spent more time [bringing in] different sounds and thought about the layers more.”

Crediting her engineer, producer and drummer Kurt Read as a crucial element to the album's sound, the pair are touring the nation as a multi-instrumental duo. As Franzmann prepares to watch the character of Eximo develop and grow in a live setting, she's excited to be bringing her other significant creations along for the ride, too.

“We're all going in a van and we're away all of October – it's gonna be good!” she giggles, contemplating the logistics of taking her family on the road. “[The format will be] Kurt on drums and me on keys and guitar and he'll play a bit of guitar, and he's got a marxophone too – a great old folk instrument. And then there's a lot of other little things like melodica and glock coming in as well... I'm pretty happy with our set-up at the moment; it feels really perfect for this album.”