Orlando Weeks - LOJA

Named after the Portuguese word for ‘store’, and titled in homage to the physical and mental creative space that moving to the country has given him, ‘LOJA’ is Orlando Weeks’ most fully realised solo album yet. Post-Maccabees, there was initially a sense of the songwriter putting some distance between that chapter and this, but here we see something of a return to a more collaborative, band-oriented state; the LP’s Rhian Teasdale-featuring, driving lead single ‘Dig!’ features a bridge that’s markedly more Maccabees-adjacent than anything on previous outings ‘A Quickening’ or ‘Hop Up’, while Katy J Pearson and Tony Njoku also lend their voices to stunning effect on two of its 11 tracks (‘My Love Is (Daylight Saving)’ and opener ‘Longing’ respectively). And in leaning more heavily into a palette that pairs electronic foundations with the warmth and depth of sweeping cello (‘Wake Up’; ‘Sorry’) and undulating piano (‘Best Night’; ‘Please Hold’), Weeks lands on a winning combination of digital and organic that has one foot in each of his musical lives. Throughout, ‘LOJA’ is imbued with a sort of childlike wonder – one that’s bolstered by the purity of Weeks’ distinctive, goosebump-inducing falsetto – but there’s also a potent reflectiveness that only age and experience can engender: “Dad would love the fish here,” he sings wistfully on closer ‘Beautiful Place’. An album of understated yet undeniably potent beauty, ‘LOJA’ paints Orlando as one who, having moved to Lisbon, is having his time in the sun in more ways than one.