The Gritterman

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So what would his grandad think of the book? “I expect he would ask me: where is the manual where you learned to do this? He would find it odd that you just kind of do it, with your fingers crossed. But I know he would have respected how I feel about my work. And I think he would have been proud of me, and hoped that I was happy. He was a very kind man.” This is a classic that everyone has read or watched before — and most likely more than once as it has been successfully adapted into multiple movies and books. Orlando Weeks – the former Maccabees frontman-turned-solo artist – is not the type of person who gets caught up in the extravagance and over-indulgence of the festive season. Not that he’s a Scrooge ‘bah humbug’ sort of bloke, mind. The London-born musician simply prefers a gentler, understated version of Christmas – much like his favourite festive children’s stories. Along the way he contemplates everything between now and then, the good and bad times. Filled with myths and superstitions of the days leading up to Christmas, an epiphany may finally bring some hope of reconnection with his brother. This story emphasises the power of Christmas and the importance of family in the festive season. As the former Maccabees frontman releases his second solo album ‘Hop Up’, Orlando Weeks has spoken to NME about the making of the joyful new record.

There’s already been talk of turning The Gritterman into an animated film, much like Raymond Briggs’ The Snowman (“I’d love that; that’s the long-term ambition”); but, before that happens, Weeks is firmly focussed on bringing The Gritterman to the live stage.

Orlando Weeks’ (The Maccabees) heartbreakingly poetic 2017 original score for his book ‘The Gritterman’ becomes our first ever Christmas drop; exclusively pressed to vinyl for the first time and limited to 1,000 copies. That’s the album that will be the Orlando Weeks classic? “Yeah, just four stinkers and then one opus,” he laughed. Review’s list includes books that are viewed as classics, more contemporary options and cover an array of themes and settings.

This is for many reasons, though most readers would agree it is the superior escapism that Christmas offers: sceptic, old, or not, anyone can become a child at heart again with Christmas books. verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ This tale emphasises the importance of kindness and compassion, manifested through ghosts of the past, present, and future that haunt a bitter Scrooge until, on Christmas, he finally decides to change his old ways.

He recalls how, on his sixth birthday, he was permitted by his grandad to sound the whistle on a traction engine, a type of steam engine once used to move heavy loads on roads and to plough fields. “At the time, I wasn’t aware it was such a sweet gesture on grandad’s part, to let me pull that whistle. But I was the first person to do it, on an engine he had been restoring for longer than I’d been alive.” The result is his new album ‘Hop Up’, its title being a buoyant, idiophonic representation of the spirit that it contains. Weeks wrote the songs at home before spending two sessions, each spanning three weeks, with the producer, solo artist and Deek Recordings founder Bullion. He helped Weeks hone in on a specific, open-hearted approach to leftfield pop: very natural, warm instrumentation manipulated in imaginative ways. A story of love, loss, and hope. One More Christmas at The Castle is a heart-warming tale of love found in the most unexpected places as Dido, a party planner, finds herself planning for more than she bargained for with Sabine, an old widow who knows this is her last Christmas. There’s also a castle that unveils secrets and old crushes are brought to light again. Praised for its beautiful writing and plot, this is a great way to escape into the festive spirit of family. In the past, Weeks said he also used the excuse that you shouldn’t question life’s joys as a way to avoid writing happier songs. “That’s just lazy, though,” he said. By allowing himself to now do just that and delve deeper into joyful experiences, he added he had learned that they are just as complicated as darker emotions. “And you don’t tarnish the joy by thinking about the joy – you just balloon it up. It’s given me an appreciation and love for music that I think I’d always known was great, but I just felt was outside of my jurisdiction.” Orlando Weeks: The megaphone is in the video for ‘Deep Down Way Out’. I guess I premiered ‘Deep Down’ and ‘Big Skies, Silly Faces’ with the BBC Concert Orchestra at the Royal Festival Hall, and I used a megaphone there. I thought it might be just a good prop, but it sounded good. Arcade Fire always use them, and the Flaming Lips; I feel like that’s a good heritage that I hope to follow.It’s an approach that’s encapsulated in the album’s first single ‘Big Skies Silly Faces’. Its choral, dream-like beauty makes focal points of aspects that might be swamped by a more boisterous production: the otherworldly vocal harmonies courtesy of Katy J Pearson, the heartening piano embellishments, how Ben Reed’s bass grows from a supporting texture to the forefront of the sound. In a tiny, second-floor room in South London, Orlando Weeks has built himself a miniature world. A narrow space at the top of the house he shares with his partner and their son, it has the feel of a particularly creative teenager’s bedroom: posters, books and trinkets line every wall, with pieces of clothing hanging on the door and a small desk providing a studious focal point. This is the place he comes to write, print, stamp, draw and think. 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. Dislocation, too. It’s the story of an elderly widower who goes out alone at Christmas time to grit snowy roads – that is, until he learns from the council that his “services are no longer required”. Of course, Paul Whitehouse isn’t the only high-profile figure to lend his support to the Gritterman project. In a beautiful moment of life coming full circle, Weeks received an endorsement from the man who made him fall in love with quiet, understated Christmas stories in the first place: a certain Raymond Briggs.

You may also opt to downgrade to Standard Digital, a robust journalistic offering that fulfils many user’s needs. Compare Standard and Premium Digital here. A tender fireside story about an ageing labourer ... witty, affectionate ... enchanting, in the vein of The Snowman' Evening Standard On the whole, we want our message to convey that there is a need for a level of personal responsibility, compassion and kindness for each other that essentially helps us all.

Weeks credits Bullion’s class, taste and open-mindedness, noting that “I’ve never worked with anyone who had such an identifiable aesthetic to their own music. There’s a class to what he does that I really wanted this record to be a part of.” Wildly productive, the album was completed from start-to-finish in just seven months, whereas Weeks’ previous albums and work with The Maccabees could take two to three years. If you do nothing, you will be auto-enrolled in our premium digital monthly subscription plan and retain complete access for 65 € per month. When I was a kid,” he reminisces, “I used to love the Christmas stories of Raymond Briggs. They’re really understated; I love the way he could hide the more fantastical elements of his stories in plain clothes. They’re like an antidote to that bombastic, bells and whistles version of Christmas. For me, a story like The Snowman (Briggs’ most famous work, of course) really sums up the spirit of Christmas.”