The Gritterman

Product Information

More attuned to Foals’ duskier moments than The Maccabees’ more fervent tunes, it’s a gorgeous record of gentle yet profound moods, homely and reflective yet capturing the awe and anxiety of encroaching parenthood in its amorphous horn swells, organic textures and glutinous throbs and heartbeats that could’ve been sampled from within the womb. The main character in the story is an old man who goes out to grit roads in winter; it’s pretty unremarkable and unromantic. With his girlfriend, to whom he has dedicated the book, he went to Berlin for 10 months and then Lisbon. Both records detail Weeks’ experience of becoming a father, with ‘A Quickening’ documenting the anticipation, expectancy and insecurities he felt ahead of the arrival of his son. It’s very difficult, if you’ve invested in what you do, to allow yourself the freedom of not doing it any more, of not working all the hours that God sends.

The London-born musician simply prefers a gentler, understated version of Christmas – much like his favourite festive children’s stories.Elsewhere, ‘High Kicking’ is conversely a meditative moment with a comparatively heavyweight soundscape that’s boosted by tight West Coast inspired harmonies from Willie J Healey and vibraphone from Jonny Mansfield. With live shows, I really enjoy setting everything up and being way more involved from the moment you arrive at the venue to when you leave the venue. Very moving to read and the character and his circumstances quickly found their way into my mind and my heart. Listening to it now, the chorus line, “The engine won’t start without him”, seems to take on a new significance.

In my experience, if you start being hands on with stuff, one thing rolls into the next and informs your next decision, making stuff, and if you’re able to do that quickly and move with a good idea, then you can just keep going through it. Weeks says the project was partly inspired by the similarity between his own circumstances and his father’s retirement. The book spawned an accompanying album, which Weeks recreated live with Paul Whitehouse playing the titular unsung hero in 2018. His debut solo album proper, A Quickening , followed in 2020, and its successor, Hop Up , is set for release in January; he’s also composed a new soundtrack for the National Theatre adaptation of Hirokazu Kore-eda’s 1998 film After Life , and is currently working on a new animation project for the Hepworth Museum. I also think there’s lots of ways of spinning off Talk Talk in the same way there’s a lot of ways of spinning off Robert Wyatt, and where you spin off to, I seem to have a nice time there too.This light-hearted tale of two cousins, one a little boy and the other an old woman, highlights the impact of Christmas on people of any generation.

In contrast to the usual merry festive feelings, Lori Evert takes a new perspective of the holidays. As far as the singing went, this was an asset, “but in the discussions about trying to finish a song there was a lot of [he mimics a weak, wobbly voice] ‘I don’t know…’” He laughs. For a man who stood on the threshold of big-league glory, peeked inside and walked away, Orlando Weeks is remarkably zen. This is an absolute must-read during Christmas to be able to truly appreciate the holiday and time with loved ones. A singer who walked away from popular chart success to make oblique, boundary-pushing freeform mood music on his own terms… hang on, is Orlando Weeks the new Talk Talk?For those Hop Up prints, I’ve been printing with lino onto cyanotype, and I think that’s how I’m going to do it. The presentation of the hardback is gorgeous and I felt as I was reading it that the artwork throughout really matches and complements the sensitive and poignant words so well. If you do nothing, you will be auto-enrolled in our premium digital monthly subscription plan and retain complete access for 65 € per month. Having developed from frenetic outliers on the Noughties guitar scene into purveyors of expansive alt-rock elegance, The Maccabees were on the brink of stepping up to the major festival headline slots, taking their seat at rock’s top table.

The privately educated son of a public affairs lobbyist, Weeks admits to having felt insecure and out of place at school but began making music more because “I enjoyed the problem-solving of it” than to exorcise his demons. The array of objects in this room is a testament to this enthusiasm for process and exacting attitude to detail. A lot of people’s work goes unrecognised and this is one of those jobs where that’s the case,” Orlando explains, “To just go about your business and not need thanks is a very attractive quality, and he finds comfort in that sense of purpose. It brings a real sense of winter throughout, and the Gritterman himself is rendered with personality and warmth.A kind of Raymond Briggs for the millennial generation – The Maccabees, incidentally, covered Walking in the Air – The Gritterman offers a vignette of English life that speaks directly to our national sense of obligation and stoicism. The artful tones and nuances of A Quickening won’t appease those who marked Weeks down as a graduate of the school of modern rock privilege. The Gritterman’ is a tale of a stoic gentleman loosely based on Orlando Weeks’ grandfather who is laid-off by the council, and follows him on his final shift on Christmas Eve as he goes out alone to clear the snow for the final time before retiring from the job he loves. A book to cherish and read each year (preferably by the fire with a cat on your lap and a cup of tea).