Image by Kate Friend.
From his influential time with The Maccabees to the multi-faceted ‘Gritterman’ story and two highly acclaimed solo albums, Orlando Weeks has carved a niche as one of the UK’s most singular talents. That reputation has further flourished with the release his new album LOJA now available on all digital platforms, with physical formats to release on August 23rd via Fiction Records. Orlando first kicked off the album’s new creative era by sharing it’s lead single ‘Dig’, featuring Rhian Teasdale of Wet Leg.
In celebration of the album, he is now set to embark on a UK tour across the country throughout September and October, starting at Newcastle’s The Cluny on the 24th September, coming to Papillon, Southampton, on October 2nd, and concluding at Brighton’s St Georges Church on the 4th October.
LOJA is a record in which place is as vital a characteristic as the emotions and incidents that he explores. The overarching themes are optimism and reflection: the positive mindset that emerged as he left London for a new life in Lisbon together with a new-found awareness about the things that you have left behind. Contentment emanates like a comforting embrace from an old friend. Yet life can never be as linear or as pure as unfiltered unhappiness and so LOJA on occasion captures more corrosive moods too, from whispered confrontations to witnessing shocking tragedy in otherwise beautiful serenity.
Orlando says, “The great change in our lives was that we left London and moved to Lisbon, and the record definitely has elements of being a love letter to the place that we now call home. But I think the move provided a stirring of the waters. It threw up an awful lot of stuff and it gave us perspective and hindsight because suddenly there was distance. You can re-evaluate the things you were too close to, those things that there was no point spending time thinking about because it was the day-to-day bubble you were in.”
LOJA simmers with an engaging, organic warmth derived primarily from members of Orlando’s live band (Sami El-Enany, William Doyle, Alexander Painter and Luca Caruso), yet it also benefits from an array of nuanced details that, on first listen, hide stealthily in plain sight before revealing themselves with repeated listens. The process started late in 2022, but only gathered pace after he relocated to Lisbon before the bulk of the record was made in thirteen days in Chale Abbey Studios on the Isle of Wight with producer Sergio Maschetzko (Black Country New Road) and his collaborator David Granshaw, before Orlando teamed up with Nathan Jenkins (Bullion) to add the finer final touches.
The title LOJA (a shop or a store) references a building that Orlando rented in Lisbon which he used as his first proper art studio, a place where he crafted all of the art that accompanies the album. The album release coincided with a special residence at The Copeland Gallery, London running from June 6th-9th, where by day Orlando exhibited the paintings, sketches and prints he created there before it was transformed into a gig venue by evening, when he performed tracks from the album for the very first time.
24th Sep – The Cluny, Newcastle
25th Sep – Band on The Wall, Manchester
26th Sep – Norwich Arts Centre, Norwich
27th Sep – Brudenell Social Club, Leeds
28th Sep – Thekla, Bristol
2nd Oct – Papillon, Southampton
3rd Oct – Islington Assembly Hall, London
4th Oct – St George’s Church, Brighton
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