LOJA Orlando Weeks

• 1 Longing 04:09
• 2 Best Night 03:35
• 3 Wake Up 03:33
• 4 Dig 02:47
• 5 You & The Packhorse Blues 03:53
• 6 Good To See You 03:22
• 7 My Love Is (Daylight Saving) 04:03
• 8 Please Hold 03:23
• 9 Sorry 03:46
• 10 Tomorrow 03:59
• 11 Beautiful Place 04:26
• Total Runtime 40:56

Info for LOJA

The album "LOJA" encapsulates a significant move from London to Lisbon, reflecting a shift in Orlando’s life and music. “The great change in our lives was that we left London and moved to Lisbon,” he explains, “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.”

Lead single "Dig", featuring Rhian Teasdale (Wet Leg), is 3 minutes of half argument, long worn-out promises being remade and road weary offences being retaken. The record features a number of other key collaborators including Katy J Pearson, Tony Njoku, Oliver Hamilton (Caroline) and Alejandro Aranda (Scary Pool Party). The core musical contributions come from long standing live collaborators Sami El-Enany, Luca Caruso, William Doyle and Alexander Painter.

A love letter to his new home, lyrically Loja toys with both the fantastical and stark realism. There are sleeping giants in "Best Night" and the final song on the album, "Beautiful Place", tells the story of a beach death. The novelty of a new city afforded Weeks the opportunity to romanticise his present and reevaluate his past.

Recorded in thirteen days at Chale Abbey Studios on the Isle of Wight with producer Sergio Maschetzko and collaborator David Granshaw, "LOJA" also features contributions from members of Orlando’s live band (Sami El-Enany, William Doyle, Alexander Painter and Luca Caruso).

Orlando Weeks

Orlando Weeks
first came to prominence as frontman of The Maccabees. After debuting in 2005, the band became one of the most influential bands of recent years, winning Best British Band at the NME Awards as well as the prestigious Ivor Novello for Best Contemporary Song. The Maccabees split at the height of their powers, with their fourth album ‘Marks To Prove It’ going straight to #1 before they departed with three sold-out nights at Alexandra Palace.

Weeks returned in 2017 with his critically acclaimed project ‘The Gritterman’. An alternative festive tale, Orlando wrote and illustrated the book, published by Penguin, and also released an accompanying companion album. Raymond Briggs noted that ‘The Gritterman’ was “…extraordinary and original’’

Having spent the late 2000s and much of the 2010s as frontman for rock outfit the Maccabees, singer/songwriter Orlando Weeks made his solo debut in the late 2010s, scoring his own short story before releasing his debut solo album in June of 2020.

Born in South London and educated at Highgate and the University of Brighton, musician Orlando Weeks got his start in music as founding member of rock group the Maccabees. The musician spent much of his musical career with the band, releasing four studio albums and landing atop the U.K. charts with final project Marks to Prove It (2015). Almost immediately after the band broke up in August 2016, Weeks released the short story The Gritterman, alongside an accompanying score. Several years after his last tour with the Maccabees, he announced his move into solo work in 2020, releasing intimate singles "Safe in Sound" and "Blood Sugar" in the first half of the year. His debut album, A Quickening, arrived in June that year; an expansion of Weeks' more introspective style, the musician's debut focused on themes of paternal life and self-expression.

This album contains no booklet.