I\'m based in Brighton, UK and have been playing and recording original material solo and in various line ups since 1991. My sound takes in folk, jazz, blues and alt. country, influenced by songwriters like Paul Simon, Bob Dylan, Danny Schmidt, Beck and Van Morrison, at the same time digging Neil Young, Gram Parsons, Johnny Cash and Nick Drake, and composers Thelonious Monk and Duke Ellington. 　　 　　I\'ve released two albums: Saw The Sun, in January 2007 on independent label Round The Corner under band name Mab, and Blues for Plankton, end of August 2008 under my own name on Bread Pudding Records. I also recorded an EP Bye Bye Blackbird in 2002, and several cassette albums between 1994 and 1999, but who\'s counting? I\'m currently recording songs for my third CD, which will be called Angels and Jackals. 　　 　　In the last three years I\'ve played sets at both Glastonbury and Bestival, written an arrangement for a live collaboration between The Hat and the London Swingfonia big band which was performed at Glastonbury 2005 in the Lost Vagueness ballroom, together with dates at popular local venues such as The Greys, as well as the 12 Bar Club, Betsey Trotwood and Green Note in London. 　　 　　 　　About Saw The Sun 　　 　　\"Soulful jazz-tinged experimental songs crammed to bursting point with pop hooks, soaring highs and enough melancholy to leave even the most hardened of gig-goers with an open jaw and a lump in their throat...\" 　　 　　 (Ric Blow, The Greys) 　　 　　 　　Saw The Sun is my first studio album and was a project that involved a large group of musicians I met through being involved with the Sound Tank collective here in Brighton between 2004 and 2007. I had a lot of songs and I selected around fifteen, wrote some string and horn arrangements, and some I recorded with a core quintet. I worked with producer Mark Treffel who plays keyboards and co-wrote some of the arrangements too. 　　 　　The band on the album is called Mab. Unfortunately, that’s also the name of an all female heavy metal band, so I had to ditch it. It features, among others: Mike Simmonds (Alice Russell, Natureboy) on violin, Buster Cottam (The Hat, Lou Rhodes) on double bass, Grant Allardyce (Super Collider, Mountain Firework Company) on drums, Mark Treffel (Blue States, Astrid Williamson) on keyboards and Chessie Grimble (Los Albertos) on soprano saxophone. A wonderful trumpet player, Rob Heasman, also plays on a couple of tracks, and Andre Fry (a wicked jazz musician) plays fretless bass on a song. 　　 　　We beavered away for a year and a day (something like that) and then we took a nine piece band on a few roads to play some of it live. These shows went down a storm, but I couldn’t pay nine musicians properly, being a skint, unsigned songwriter, so we did more gigs with a quintet. This became a trio (me, keys and violin), then a duo (me and violin), then I was left a solo act trying to promote an album with nineteen musicians on it! This kind of put a spanner in the works and I had to re think what I was doing. I sat in a room for three months and wrote another bunch of songs which became my second CD, Blues for Plankton, but that’s another story (probably not a very exciting one, it being basically me, in a room with a guitar, paper and pencil and lots of tea, and my girlfriend wondering what the f*!# I was doing not actually speaking to anyone for days on end.) 　　 　　 　　Other kind words 　　 　　\"It\'s deliciously unrushed... Amidst this musical master-class sits Messent\'s startling lyricism. Simple, downbeat stories bleed with emotion as Messent talks with a Van Morrison-esque level of introspection and reflection. It\'s equally serene and poignant…\" 　　 　　 (Blues For Plankton album review, Stephen Jasper, Fresh Deer Meat) 　　 　　\"...full of mellow subtleties, lonesome riffs and fine vocal moments...\" 　　 　　 (MW, DrownedinSound, EP review) 　　 　　\"...an unfussy and bare vocal strength with an acute edginess redolent of Neil Young.\" 　　 　　 (live review, Sanctuary Cafe)