In this case is the metaphor of the birth or the birth of an album to be taken literally, “A Quickening” is mainly about the birth of Orlando Weeks ?? first child, a son, as the first four lines of the first song (“Milk Breath”) announce more than clearly: “My Son, My Son, My Son, My Son…”. This piece is the only one that addresses the newborn as an already existing being, while the remaining ten numbers, in flowing transitions and associative chains, retrospectively circle around the prenatal state of expectation of parenthood and play around with a leitmotif.
“A Quickening” is also a birth in the figurative sense: namely that of the former singer of the Maccabees as a solo artist. The British indie band, one of the most creative and authoritative of the genre, broke apart in 2017, after four albums, at the peak of their success (including headlining the renowned Latitude Festival). Orlando Weeks, vocally formative, but not a ramp sow (as you could see at a concert in the Vienna Gasometer, where he usually acted from the edge of the stage), was after Split moved to Berlin a year, had drawn more than music as a former art student (and among other things wrote and illustrated the children’s book “The Gritterman”).
But now again music – and that in extensive format. Orlando Weeks has placed his son in a lush orchestral cradle. Far away from the guitar-emphasized Maccabees sound, electronic surfaces, which are enriched with pianos, trumpets, horns and all kinds of other fans, now determine the sound image. In connection with Weeks ?? solemn and sonorous singing produces partly beautiful to the knees (“Takes A Village”, “Blame Or Love or Nothing”), partly somewhat eternal results (“Moon ?? s Opera”, “Dream”), which remind of the early phase of Hark Hollis remember when he began to free himself from the talk-talk universe – and disappeared into increasingly abstract spheres.
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