Mesadorm

Mesadorm is a collaborative project between five lifelong friends: Blythe Pepino (Vaults, Blythe, The John Martyn Project), Aaron Zahl (Chairfight!), Daisy Palmer (Paloma Faith, Rae Morris, Goldfrapp, Chairfight!), Jo Silverston (The Unthanks, Red Clay Halo, Frank Turner) and David Johnston (ZunZun Egui, Phil King, Chairfight!). Their long-shared history, shaped by friendship, love, rupture and reunion, gives the band an intuitive chemistry, unfolding live as performances that feel both grounded and transportive.

Difficult to confine to a single genre, Mesadorm exist in the spaces between art rock and dream pop. Pepino’s lyrics often feel like overheard thoughts, half-lit and close to the skin, while the band’s layered vocal harmonies lift the songs into something more elemental. Guitars bend and murmur, synths flicker and swell, and the music frequently sidesteps predictable structures in favour of slow reveals and emotional turns.

The band first came to wider attention with their debut album Heterogaster (2018), a striking introduction that examined relationships, family, sexuality and pain with clarity and care. The record received widespread acclaim, with The Guardian calling it “some of the most interesting music this year,” alongside early support from Lauren Laverne (BBC 6 Music), Huw Stephens (BBC 6 Music) and John Kennedy (Radio X). It was named Best Album of 2018 by BBC Introducing in the West and featured in The Guardian’s Best Contemporary Albums of the Year.

In 2019, Epicadus stripped those songs back to their emotional framework, offering an acoustic reimagining that brought a new sense of closeness and fragility. Standalone releases followed, including ‘Let’s Leap’, championed by Jack Saunders (BBC Radio 1) for its energy and invention and ‘Take Me To A Place’, both signalling a band growing bolder in sound and intent.

Their second album, Pollinator (2022), saw Mesadorm widen their lens. With Blythe stepping fully into the production role, the band embraced a more collective, exploratory approach, pairing warmth and abrasion in equal measure. The album balanced personal intimacy with an undercurrent of social unease, earning praise for its emotional depth and dynamic range.

After four years of quiet recalibration, Mesadorm return with their new single ‘Come On, Baby’, released 6th March 2026 - the first in a sequence of releases leading up to their third album Comfort and Lies, releasing in June 2026. Comfort and Lies will be Mesadorm’s most open and emotionally expansive album yet, reflecting on themes of childhood, belonging and care, while also touching on the wider unease of contemporary Britain.