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boonesfarmsangria · 5 months ago

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Orlando Weeks recently released his brilliant new record LOJA. It’s either the ex-Maccabees third solo album or fourth, if you count the children’s book and accompanying Paul Whitehouse-featuring soundtrack he made for The Gritterman in 2017. It’s also his best, pairing the intricate introspection of his previous solo work with the expansive art-rock dynamism that made The Maccabees so exciting. He launched the album with a four-night residence at London’s Copeland Gallery, exhibiting his artwork during the day and playing gigs in the evening. I (still Niall here, still hungover) was originally supposed to speak to him on the second day of the residency but he was swamped and very politely rescheduled at the last minute. We caught up a week a week later instead:

The New Cue #391 June 24: Orlando Weeks

Hello Orlando. Sorry I'm late, I couldn't find the link.

No, I owe you the apology, I cancelled so late last week, so thanks for doing this.

Don't worry about it, I could tell you meant business because you had a pencil behind your ear. You were in the zone. What was going on at that point?

All of it went well and I'm really happy with how it went, but everything took longer, required more time... I totally underestimated things like how long it took to cut all the paper to size, how early I needed to get in each day to make the prints to sell in the evenings. It was the first time I'd done it so it was a lot on the fly and I felt like I was barely keeping up with what I needed to get done and if I was having a conversation with someone where my responsibility to that conversation is to try and give good account and be good company or whatever, then I was gonna fail at that miserably.

Haha. With all that in mind, how did you feel after the run of four days?

I really enjoyed it. I felt like all the aspects could have stood on their own. The exhibition looked as I wanted it to look, the performances worked and made sense, especially in the context of the gallery. The general experience of being there all day and making more work for the event, all of that makes sense to me in terms of contextualising the record and staying busy during the day really works for me in terms of taking some of the onus off the evening. I don't like turning up somewhere and doing the gig and that being the be all and end all of my product that day.

It's a lot of dead hours.

Yeah and it just puts too much pressure on that moment. Even towards the end of Maccabees, I was beginning to try and find ways of getting into getting into those bigger venues, trying to get into them really early in the morning, finding a desk or a room that no one else is going to use and just be busy in there for a bit and it would take some of the weight off the gig in the evening.

Did it work? By the time the gig came around, were you in a different headspace compared to how you would have been if you've just been sitting there for hours waiting to soundcheck?

Definitely. Being a touring musician as a solo proposition, turning up at venues and setting up the merch desk and all the things that used to be fun about the early days of being in a band, I really like. I like being sure that I've met lots of people that work in the venue and said hello, I really like feeling that that is part of what the venue is, not just the backstage and the stage, all those people make the weirdness of sitting on a stage and playing music to people slightly less weird.

The flipside of that is, do you miss anything about doing those big gigs where The Maccabees ended up?

Yeah, there's the rareness of experience. It's not something that lots of people get to do. Towards the end of Maccabees, I was getting this really unpleasant stage fright that meant that I had the adrenaline through the afternoon and into the gig grew, my ability to process the adrenaline would just fail and then during the show, I would become more and more anxious and self-conscious and panic. Then by the time we finished the gig, my emotional drop off was really intense and unpleasant and so I found it really hard to enjoy those big gigs. In retrospect, I would hope to be in a better headspace to really process what that was, if that's possible. I definitely had some of those gigs that were great that I enjoyed but, as a whole, I was really struggling with getting to the end of the gig and not finding it just uncomfortable.

I feel like the new record has a real connect with the music you made in The Maccabees. I really liked the previous two but this one feels like it's got the ambition and expanse that The Maccabees had paired with the arty introspection of what you've done on your solo records. Is that fair?

I think so. There is an element of the first two that were very insular. A Quickening was basically made in Nic Nell's bedroom and then he moved flat and it was another bedroom and a bit of his studio in New Cross and then the second was made in Nathan Jenkin's [aka electronic producer Bullion] studio in Tottenham Hale. We were really nervous about being in confined spaces so everything was done with masks on so it was not a freeing experience. We were very lucky that we were making a record that the point was to try and be uplifting because had that not been the manifesto for it then I think it would have not been such a pleasurable experience because it was great. I really enjoyed it. But with this, there was Fiction back on board, so [Fiction MD] Jim Chancellor championing me and making me feel like 'Why don't you do that? You should!'. I feel very comfortable with Jim. And then also there being a bit of budget, there being enough musicians that I knew that I'd worked with, toured with, played with, watched, become friends, whatever, that I could put together a band. And I'd written songs that I thought would suit that.

My initial idea of the record was I wanted to try and make a band in a room record and it isn't that. That was something that Maccabees strived to do and didn't achieve. One of the records that I've listened to in the last like four or five years that I think does it amazingly and is an incredible record that I return to a lot is the Caroline debut record. They're rare things, especially when it's a lot of people.

Tell me about getting some of the guests involved. You've got a band you’ve put together behind you, and also Katy J Pearson, Rhian from Wet Leg and Tony Njoku on it. It might not be a band in a room record but it feels like an album where you are sparking off other people.

Yeah, and I think there is a difference between those two things. There is a huge amount of collaboration and successful collaboration to my mind on the record, which is different to a band in a room record. I'd gone away with the initial recordings and I felt like we hadn't nailed the band in the room record so it was then trying to think, 'Right, so if it's not going to be that, I made the rules, I made the manifesto, it's mine to break, it's mine to change and I want it to be the best version of whatever it's going to be' and then starting thing 'Okay, so My Love Is needs something else' and I think Katy has one of the great voices in terms of emotive voices and I think it works well with my voice. I felt like I had a favour in the chamber with Rhian because even though I'd said no to it, she'd asked if I'd be in a Wet Leg video so I knew her well enough to ask a favour or at least see if she liked the song. Tony Njoku I'd played with, he'd come and supported me a couple of times. We have mutual friends and I know him well enough to just ask him directly and send him some music. Olly, I'd seen Caroline and the record became something that I listened to a lot and I'd seen Caroline at Latitude. So there were enough people and enough time that I could approach people and let them have some time with the decision. It feels like a collaborative record.

By the end of the Maccabees, you lot were becoming notoriously slow. I think the last record featured in Q previews for the coming year two years in a row. Have you got better at working quicker o have you carried that into your solo career?

I mean, the reason Maccabees sounded like Maccabees was because the process took as long as it did. The sifting that had to happen, that's just as long as it took. Without those various, necessary Maccabee hoops to jump through, I can make decisions quickly, I can work as late as I want to or get up as early as I want to. I think Maccabees always had a really good work ethic, especially the last two records, everyone worked hard, I just think if you're in a group generally, that's just the kind of natural law.

You’ve been solo now for going on seven years. What have you learned about yourself over that period?

In relation to Maccabees, I can feel much fonder about all that time and I have a much nicer, easier time with all those people which is a very nice thing that time gives. I really love the process still, I really like starting with no songs and then slowly getting building a record. In terms of my work, I don't think I've changed very drastically. I just really like doing it. I count it, I mind about it still, like I find the responsibility of it... when I hear myself saying these things, it sounds so flat!

It doesn't!

I genuinely think the mission is to try and find ways of keeping that as long as possible. When I was saying that it sounded flat it's just because I'm so comfortable with that as my MO. I'm doing everything I can to justify to myself and to enough people to find its relevance that's a legitimate thing for me to try and sustain.

Does it feel weird or funny to you that you and [other Maccabees offshoot] 86TVs are releasing music at the same time?

I think it probably would have felt weird if it was happening straight away, I also think that what we're making is pretty different and the way we are framing it is different. I'm so pleased for the boys that, from when I speak to them and from what I see from their output, they're having a very good time doing it and they've been very sweet when they've spoken to me.

I tried playing the two tracks over one another to see if I could get an idea of what The Maccabees would sound like in 2024 but it sounded awful.

Hahaha, good! I'm quite relieved that it didn't end up that satanic messages started coming through.

I should've asked this at the beginning of this conversation but where are you at the moment?

I'm in Lisbon.

You’ve lived there for a few years now. Does it feel like home yet?

Yeah, definitely.

What are the main things you love about living there?

I find it hard to explain but I feel very new here. I lived in London almost all my life. Apart from a few years in Brighton when I was coming back a lot anyway, I was in London for almost 40 years so your fingerprint is everywhere, there is so much of your history in and so many eras of your history embedded in everything. It was so rare that I would go to somewhere that I hadn't been to before that I hadn't had a night there before or I hadn't seen countless gigs there. I'm habitual anyway so if all of my days are spent at a desk either writing songs or doing drawing or whatever, and any desk will do, then in the evenings, I'm less interested in going and doing a new thing or seeing anything or walking down the street and being like 'That's it's the first time I've done it' and here I feel like that all the time. And this is not to do with being noticed by someone that might have known the Maccabees but I'm inconspicuous here, I'm not bumping into people, I'm not coming across old haunts, I'm fresh here.

Constant surprise.

Constant surprise, lots of moments where I cannot believe my luck. The way that Lisbon sits, the hills mean where a sunrise happens or sets, if you're just one road over, everything is weirdly more colourful or the way that that light bounces, I'm so seduced by it. I keep thinking the newness will wear thin and it doesn't.

How far do you look forward, what's your mind on now?

Weirdly, today was the first day I sat down and started just playing piano and thinking about what I'd really like to do next. I really want to write something that Bill Ryder-Jones wants to produce or sing on or play guitar on. It's something we've talked about on and off for a long time. Even if we just did one song. I just sent him a video link for the McAlmont & Butler song the other day, just as like a 'mmm?'. I started trying to think how to write a pop song that he would enjoy. And then the other thing is I want to try and find other places in the UK or in Europe where I can take the Copeland gallery framework and put it into another place and be in a place for a few days and do play some music and exhibit some work.

Nice one man, thanks for your time.

Amazing, thank you again

#orlando weeks #interview #LOJA #hmm too in it #fav #self portrait

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zevrra · 18 days ago

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not enough !! ੈ✩‧₊˚

—♡. v!choso who suddenly can’t stop thinking about bending you over this desk and fucking you until he can’t take it anymore. his thoughts run wild even as your fingers move across his broad shoulders and down his arms. he has tasted your lips, felt your body press against him one too many times and it wasn’t enough. he needed more and with the blood pumping in his ears as your chest weighs heavy on his back once again as your hand wraps around his cock, stroking him off, he’s struggling to stay under control. biting his bottom lip with the threat of making it bleed as he watches your hand stroke his leaking cock.

—♡. choso who cums into your hand with his tie stuffed into his mouth to keep himself quiet. but even with the cloth in his mouth it doesn’t fully muffle the deep, animalistic and wild groan that he makes. rutting into your hand like a desperate man who’s just had his first taste of pleasure. he grips the table in front of him until his knuckles turn white. all the while you kiss the shell of his ear. “mmm yeah baby, you thinkin’ bout my pussy?” you ask with a lustful chuckle, removing his tie from his mouth with your other hand.

—♡. choso groans deeply at your words and nods eagerly in return. “yes! ‘s all i can — fuck — think about!” he admits in a high pitched whine as he rides out the last few moments of his orgasm. his honesty makes you smile wide as you kiss the side of his neck, your hand moving much easier over his messy cock now. “let me fuck you, please, please i need it! i need to feel your pussy around me.” he sobs as your thumb presses into the head of his pretty red cock, trembling under your touch.

—♡. “hmm you sure you want me to be your first?” you ask in a sweet tone. choso cries in response, one of his hands leaving the desk only to wrap his long fingers around your wrist. “mphm! pleaseee. want you i can’t fucking take it anymore!” he mumbles between hiccups as your hand continues to stroke his sensitive shaft. luckily enough for him, you planned to make his wish come true just not yet. you needed to tease him just a little longer before giving him what he truly desires.

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