The Gift

Live interview - Virgin Mobile Live w Abbey Braden

Nuno Gonçalves (teclados), John Gonçalves (bajo), Sónia Tavares (voz) y Miguel Ribeiro (guitarra), entre los 33 y 36 años, habían hecho sus pinitos en grupos rockeros. "Sónia es la única que tiene estudios de música. El resto venimos de la escuela-garaje, de ensayar, pelear y pelear". La gira que arranca esta semana en Madrid continuará en Barcelona, Nueva York y Canadá, para regresar a España y Portugal. Explode es la mayor apuesta de su carrera. "El sonido de los Gift se basaba hasta ahora en tres elementos característicos: muchos músicos externos, cuerdas, metales, arpas, percusión, coros, que daban un carácter épico a la banda; la voz de Sónia era más melodramática y melancólica; y utilizábamos mucha programación rítmica", explica Nuno Gonçalves en el local de ensayo, un sótano de 45 metros cuadrados de la casa de sus padres. En este espacio, repleto de material electrónico, sintetizadores, ordenadores, teclados, guitarras, columnas de audio y cables por todas partes, The Gift prepara su gira transatlántica.

"Con Explode hemos utilizado el sonido propio del grupo y hemos grabado con un productor de reconocido prestigio como Ken Nelson, que trajo al mundo los Kings of Convenience, que tiene dos Grammy y que ha sido elegido tres veces mejor productor británico", señala Gonçalves.

Nelson estuvo con el grupo los cinco meses que duró la grabación del último disco. Alquilaron una casa en las afueras de Madrid, e instalaron un estudio con el material que trasladaron desde Portugal y el que trajo el productor desde Londres. "Fuimos a Madrid porque Nuno vivió dos años en aquella ciudad", cuenta Sónia Tavares. Hoy se puede construir fácilmente un estudio de grabación en cualquier parte, añade la cantante. "No queríamos un sonido tan perfeccionista, buscábamos algo más banda, más rough (áspero)". El resultado, según describe Nuno Gonçalves, ha sido "una explosión de colores, de cosas positivas, de vida...". A la hora de hablar de fuentes de inspiración, cada uno tiene sus influencias. U2, Arcade Fire, Depeche Mode, Coldplay, Flaming Lips, son referencias. "Aunque, musicalmente, creo que hemos llegado al punto en que los Gift consiguen sonar a Gift". Pese a todo, conservan el objetivo del primer día: hacer la música que les gusta y "llevarla al mayor número de gente".
- Paperblog - Spain

Hace 10 años, tocábamos en el Café La Palma ante un centenar de personas. Ahora, lo haremos en una sala en la que caben 2.300", dice Nuno Gonçalves, líder y compositor del grupo portugués The Gift. Las cosas han cambiado mucho en la última década para este grupo nacido en 1994, a caballo entre el pop y el rock indie. Cinco discos de los que vendieron unas 200.000 copias y premios como el MTV Europe Award (2005) o el Globo de Oro al mejor grupo portugués (2007) son datos más que respetables para una banda formada por cuatro amigos de la infancia de Alcobaça, localidad de 15.800 habitantes en el centro de Portugal. El grupo actúa el sábado 7 de mayo en el Teatro Circo Price, de Madrid, donde presentará Explode, su último disco.


Nuno Gonçalves (teclados), John Gonçalves (bajo), Sónia Tavares (voz) y Miguel Ribeiro (guitarra), entre los 33 y 36 años, habían hecho sus pinitos en grupos rockeros. "Sónia es la única que tiene estudios de música. El resto venimos de la escuela-garaje, de ensayar, pelear y pelear". La gira que arranca esta semana en Madrid continuará en Barcelona, Nueva York y Canadá, para regresar a España y Portugal. Explode es la mayor apuesta de su carrera. "El sonido de los Gift se basaba hasta ahora en tres elementos característicos: muchos músicos externos, cuerdas, metales, arpas, percusión, coros, que daban un carácter épico a la banda; la voz de Sónia era más melodramática y melancólica; y utilizábamos mucha programación rítmica", explica Nuno Gonçalves en el local de ensayo, un sótano de 45 metros cuadrados de la casa de sus padres. En este espacio, repleto de material electrónico, sintetizadores, ordenadores, teclados, guitarras, columnas de audio y cables por todas partes, The Gift prepara su gira transatlántica.

"Con Explode hemos utilizado el sonido propio del grupo y hemos grabado con un productor de reconocido prestigio como Ken Nelson, que trajo al mundo los Kings of Convenience, que tiene dos Grammy y que ha sido elegido tres veces mejor productor británico", señala Gonçalves.

Nelson estuvo con el grupo los cinco meses que duró la grabación del último disco. Alquilaron una casa en las afueras de Madrid, e instalaron un estudio con el material que trasladaron desde Portugal y el que trajo el productor desde Londres. "Fuimos a Madrid porque Nuno vivió dos años en aquella ciudad", cuenta Sónia Tavares. Hoy se puede construir fácilmente un estudio de grabación en cualquier parte, añade la cantante. "No queríamos un sonido tan perfeccionista, buscábamos algo más banda, más rough (áspero)". El resultado, según describe Nuno Gonçalves, ha sido "una explosión de colores, de cosas positivas, de vida...". A la hora de hablar de fuentes de inspiración, cada uno tiene sus influencias. U2, Arcade Fire, Depeche Mode, Coldplay, Flaming Lips, son referencias. "Aunque, musicalmente, creo que hemos llegado al punto en que los Gift consiguen sonar a Gift". Pese a todo, conservan el objetivo del primer día: hacer la música que les gusta y "llevarla al mayor número de gente".
- El Pais - Francesc Relea

rom time to time, MMN asks its favorite artists to create personally curated playlists for our curiosity-satisfying- and audio-streaming pleasure. Themes and styles will vary, but you’ll always know your favorite bands just a little better after listening.
Today’s MMN Artist Radio DJ is: The Gift.
Though they’re recognizable leaders of the DIY scene in their native Portugal, the Gift have criminally remained under-appreciate here in the states despite tours with kindred spirits like the Flaming Lips. Combining a hazy, psychedelic sound with feel-good pop, the Gift managed to create evocative sounds that will make your mind wander to somewhere happy and warm, even if you don’t recognize it right away. These qualities come on many of the songs that make up Explode, their latest album which will finally see a release here in the US in September. One such song, “The Singles,” inspired their exclusive playlist for MOG: “We have a song called “The Singles” in our new album Explode which speaks about a musician that can´t record any singles of his own and in the last part of the song he uses different pop culture references related to our experiences in our small Portuguese home town, Alcobaça. We quoted that track, to do this 10 song playlist.” Take a listen to tracks by LCD Soundsystem, Pulp, and more, and be sure to check out the band’s headlining gig at the Bowery Ballroom on June 14th if you happen to be in New York! Check out the tracks alongside the band’s commentary, and stream the playlist after the jump….

1. Talking Heads – “Burning Down the House”
“Born in a small town
Bad movies once a week
Two TV channels, no remote, begging for Twin Peaks”
“Besides the bad movies once a week in our local cinema and Twin Peaks on our TV with only two channels in 1991, we listened to a lot of Talking Heads. In the middle of the 80s we started to have colour TV in most of the Portuguese homes but we were still in the black and white music – like the Manchester music we listened, so when colour TV came we had Talking Heads as the equivalent in our stereos. They were the first ones to show us that music can be colourful, happy and the ones that show us the way to a certain creative and culturally mixed American music. For us it is an obvious choice when we are promoting an album that has this concept of an ‘explosion of colours’ as its main topic.”

2. Radiohead – “A Wolf at the Door”
“And during Christmas eve
The world was sharing gifts
We didn’t care, we were listening to good riffs”
“On Christmas Eve we had the finale of the local modern music festival from our home town, so at 1AM on December 25th, everyone was expecting to listen and see good guitar riffs on the festival small stage. From that time, and even if Radiohead never came to our local festival, they were our alternative riffs heroes with ‘Creep’ first and with all the other ones after. ‘A Wolf at the Door’ — the last song from their album Hail to the Thief — is one of the Radiohead songs that we all like, and we never understood why they don’t play it much more live.”

3. The Cure – “Pictures of You”
“A borrowed Walkman
The cheapest tape on it
Disintegration in repeat, the best trip I can get”
“Now that Disintegration is 22 years old and is still one of the references of our teenage years in our small town, its impossible to not have one song from it, in this short playlist. An album that is always so good to listen to again and again, just like when you spend a night seeing old photographs and reminisce on the old times. It was always so interesting when we listened to Disintegration on a random night and we were even more surprised when we realized that the great Robert Smith was only 30 years old when he wrote this amazing album.”

4. LCD Soundsystem – “Someone Great”
“Romance the 80’s, we dance the 90’s
The last 10 years they passed so fast, I kind of miss them”
“It’s true that the last 10 years passed so fast but it was good to pass them with this amazing band where we had the chance to listen to the album even before it was first released. Our friend James Murphy is one of the most important people of the last decade and it was so nice to see the official goodbye of this influential band Live on the Internet, in the same living room where we were listening to The Cure and all the other classics that are in this list 20 years ago. If someone ‘romanced the 80s and dance the 90s in the 00s,’ that person is James Murphy and it would be impossible and unfair to not have him in this list. Like our song says, I kind of miss them already.”

5. The Go! Team – “Apollo Throwdown”
“Best parties ever
Our heroes on the stage
Coloured lights, glamour nights, was the neon age”
“The Go! Team Rolling Blackouts was the first album we listened to after we did the mastering of our new album Explode in London this February and we loved it right away. When we finish an album we always listen to new bands or new songs from a different perspec - MOG Music Network - Scott Tomford

Portuguese psychedelic synth-pop group The Gift may be one of the most successful DIY bands you’ve never heard of. Popular across Europe, this four-person band has been together since 1994, and continues to manage themselves, finance their own recordings, and produce their own visually tantalizing live shows. Most recently the group has made a mark on the American music scene with their video for the hopeful and sweet track “Made for you.” The video features Lukas Haas and Isabelle Lucas performing the song, which was filmed and recorded in Haas’ studio in LA.
With an album due out in June, the band has an insane amount of work on their plate. Luckily, band member John Goncalves took a few minutes out of his busy schedule to talk to Rumbum about the group’s past, present, and bright future.
Tell me a little bit about Explode.
Explode is an album that was created with the concept of an explosion of color. We went to Madrid, rented a house, and we were there, the four of us, with the producer trying to make that explosion of color… the happiness and joy of something that people could relate to when they were listening the album. We had a lot of time to experiment with new effects, and new structures on the songs, and new environments, and we were not afraid of being completely free to create whatever we wanted to create.
What was it like to work with your producer Ken Nelson (producer for bands like Coldplay and Gomez)?
Ken Nelson is a very experienced producer, an wonderful person that let us experience what we wanted to do with all the freedom we wanted to and in the end he just shaped some of our ideas, and some of our performances but very was still very focused on the sound that the album was taking. He was worried with the sound and with aesthetics but he really gave us freedom to be able to create the musical environment we wanted to
You have been together as a band since 1994, how do you think you have grown and changed since then?
Well it’s 17 years of a process that started in a very small town of Portugal and as you can imagine a lot of things changed from there. We kind of do a tribute to our hometown in the last part of our song "The Singles." We have grown up together as a 100% "Do It Yourself" band and that makes you much more adult at an early age, because you control the process of creating music, booking shows, and taking care of everything else. That makes us be more adult and more responsible but at the same time you stay very focused on what you really don’t want, rather, more than what you do want. We played all over the world - literally - and we are in a time now of enjoying what we are doing. There are moments in the band’s life during which the musicians need to suffer with a lot of things but now we are in a phase of our career and our personal lives that we just want to enjoy every moment and enjoy the fact that after 17 years we are more motivated than ever to bring our music to the biggest number of people.
You've released a sneak peak from Explode - a track called "Made For You." Why did you decide to release this song first?
We never know what is the best song to release first because we always like all of them. So "Made for You" might not represent the album but it does represent one idea we had with this album, which was to create different structures on the songs like strong melodies, and several parts in the same song. This one sounded the best to release it first. Like I said first, we hope that this song is a good approach to make people listen the rest of the album.
Lukas Haas and Isabel Lucas star in the video for "Made For You." Was that fun to put together?
Yeah that was really fun to put together. The idea was simple - Make Lukas and Isabel pretending they were having a real music project that we called "Lukas / Lucas" to make everyone believe that they really wrote that song. We met Carleton Ranney, who is a young director that was at the Cannes Film Festival, and we spoke with him about the idea and since Lukas was his friend and is a musician too, it was clear he was the perfect actor to do it. Then Lukas spoke with Isabel and she accepted to play this "real role.” It was fun to film and fun to put together. Very fun!

Any solo tours planned for the upcoming year?
Yeah we just did 5 sold out shows in a wonderful theatre in Portugal, and we are going to release the album in Spain now, and on May 7th we will have an important show in Madrid. In June we will present the album in Toronto and New York. After that, we will do an European tour in the summer – we have already scheduled a Festival with Portishead and Arcade Fire July 15th – and the idea is to come back to an American/Canadian tour by October and finally we will play a Brazilian tour. We have a lot of fans in Brazil already, so that should be fun.

You manage your own band and finance your own recordings; do you feel like the details of this ever get in the way of just making music?
No - Rum Bum - Gabrielle Sierra

THE GIFT..'EXPLODE'

(La Folie) Reviewed 30th April 2011

Portuguese band The Gift have a long and illustrious history stretching back to the mid 90's, but despite singing in English and being very successful in their homeland, this album has already spent a couple of weeks at number 1 in the Portuguese charts, they have had surprisingly little success abroad, although they have been on MTV and toured extensively abroad, making some headway in the USA, and their American management company Girlie Action look after the likes of Tori Amos, Antony and the Johnsons and Morrissey. Added to that, this first album for five years has been produced by Englishman Ken Nelson whose previous clients include Coldplay, Gomez and Paolo Nutini, (which reminds me, I need some new shoes). The theme of the album is an explosion of colours with all it's connotations, “Trust the name Explode, Trust the colours of the rainbows” ('Made For You'). You are going to ask me what they sound like, you do like to ask some tough ones don't you, well then, NBC called them “purveyors of psychedelic synth-pop” and their Myspace says “Radiohead, meets Beck, meets Bjork, meets Portishead”. I would also throw Tears For Fears, The Beatles, Brian Wilson, Coldplay, Muse, HAL, OMD, Jellyfish and even Pink Floyd into their kaleidoscope, in short they take pigments from art rock and pop's most colourful bands to create their own unique palette. Vivacious lead singer Sónia Tavares has quite a deep distinctive voice that harmonises perfectly with that of Nuno Gonçalves with loads of terrific harmonies. They paint a wide spectrum of sounds, effects and textures upon each song's canvass, some are more conventional like the catchy 'RGB' and driving 'Race Is Long', while others are more unusual such as the quirky 'Mermaids Songs', the delightful 'Primavera' and the dreamy 'Aquatica'. The polymorphous centrepiece 'The Singles' is about a guy trying to write a hit song and it goes through a variety of hues before ending with the wonderful line 'Stop it now, I just did a twelve minute song” and they duly do – suddenly! Other highlights include the sublime ballad 'Suit Of Many Colours' and the upbeat anthemic 'My Sun' (live video on Female Voices Blog). It all comes packaged in a beautiful digibook with fantastic photos taken at the Holi Festival of Colours held in that most vibrant of cites Delhi, with the band looking like Jack 'The Dripper' Pollock living paintings, it is great to see a band paying as much attention to the visuals as the music. Anyone who enjoys intelligent art rock and pop will want to hang this masterpiece upon their walls, their gallery is here, a technicolored 9/10 (Phil)
- Ravenheart Music

Portugal has been in the center of pop culture more for their soccer players rather than musicians. The names Figo, Cristiano Ronaldo, Jose Mourinho have all become synonymous for the beautiful country all due to the beautiful game. Yet, with a place as colorful and enthusiastic as Portugal, there needs to be a band and sound that compliment the country and no one has done and can do it better than The Gift. The Gift, who have been together since 1994 and just release their sixth record, Explode, returned to Bowery Ballroom and performed in New York City for the first time in five years.

On a short stop to North America (playing only two shows, Toronto and New York), The Gift lived up to the title of their latest record and exploded on site. Dressed in colorful attire, the seven members of the band came on stage with smiles on their faces and pride in their hearts and never took down their joy for a second. Singer Sonia Tavares looked like part gypsy punk, part traditional Porto garb and part flamboyant military leader as she strutted on stage and took over as if Bowery Ballroom was her house and we were her guests. Bowery Ballroom was jam packed with an audience of Portuguese and Mediterranean decent but it did not matter, most of the bands songs are in English and are as swelling as a rising ocean tide. Tavares, whose voice is a tenor with a massive vibrato flair to it compels the crowd, while her six band mates create vibrant psychedelic pop with a gypsy punk flair, in other words think Flaming Lips meets Gogol Bordello. Each song has an epic rise and sucks you in as if you were trapped in middle of the ocean during a monsoon and manages to restore you in such a beautiful way. They are all talented musicians and like their contemporaries, Arcade Fire, play multiple instruments at once and are constantly switching for each song. The highlights of the name came during the songs "Made for You," which left everyone in awe and the during the crowd pleasing "11.33" which was then followed up by a Depeche Mode cover of "Enjoy the Silence." It was a night and performance for those who have followed the band around and knew that it was worth the five year wait. Tavares would even joke about the band's rare Stateside appearance and said "Last time we were here, we played Mercury Lounge and saw a band called Vampire Weekend, they opened for us." The days of Vampire Weekend playing the 200 person Mercury Lounge are over and the days of The Gift playing there are done as well. For those that never saw the band before, The Gift were a true present.

Opening the night were New York natives, Xylos. Xylos have an incredible new wave sound to them and were the predecessor for The Gift. Fronted by the sultry and sexy Monika Heidemann who would gain the crowds attention with her Debbie Harry-esq front woman abilities. The band plowed through songs off their self-titled debut which was released back in April. With a box of light rods in front of the stage and catchy songs, Xylos had the crowd ready for action. In their hour long set they managed to walk away as if it was a co-headlining bill.

- The Examiner - Salvatore Bono

The Gift
Explode
[La Folie]
2011 is the year of Explode! So says the Portuguese band The Gift, of their sixth album releasing this summer, five years after their last album Facil de Entender in 2006. The sound label given to this band is alternative/electronic/folky/pop/rock and they do their very best to achieve all those genres throughout the 11 tracks that make up Explode. Hell, they cover all those bases on the 12 minute track “Singles” as the song swoops nicely from upbeat pop-rock to a quiet melody, emphasizing the deceptively simple lyrics. A track sung in all Portuguese, “Primavera” is practically a template for how to properly use a synthesizer. If you’re a fan of difficult to categorize music, such as Bjork or Sigur Ros, then this is right up your alley. - The Owl Mag

Two encores deep into their set at Madrid Teatro Circo Price, the show was surely over. A third encore would try somebody’s patience. Somebody official.

But for 17 years, the Portugal band The Gift has been operating without a boss. Sans management or outside labels, they’ve grown famous in their home country and Spain by recording in their converted garage. Arguably, they’ve built a small empire around high-drama, English-language anthemic indie rock by garnering sponsorships, opening for the likes of Flaming Lips in the US, and becoming the “first Portuguese band to X” — X being everything (like getting a spot on MTV UK).

So with the venue’s blessings, the band hit the stage — again. The crowd hadn’t budged, since they’ve come to expect The Gift’s tireless showmanship. Frontwoman Sonia Tavares, a true diva who had crooned and high-kicked through a demanding hours-long set, said in flawless Spanish: “Do you want more? Make some space, because we’re going to play…” she pointed into the center of the audience, “there.”

Without help from security, the audience parted seas. Now microphone-less, the quartet and their hoard of musical guests strolled into the crowd, asking everyone to sit down and hush while they set up their acoustics for the final song. The entire audience — which extended over 20 yards in every direction — obeyed without a hitch.

Flying DIY

The Gift had invited global press to the Madrid show in May, hoping to branch out from their west Mediterranean bubble. They’ve had their occasional international triumph, but they’re still holding out for an American breakthrough. At the moment they’re promoting their June 14 show at Bowery Ballroom in New York, along with their March album Explode, which hit number 1 in Portugal album sales.

“Usually we never get to first place, because there’s always U2 or Phil Collins. Now, I think The Strokes are up there with us,” said John Gonçalves, the bassist/keyboardist/closest thing to a manager.

It’s been a long road to number 1, but six albums and a full calendar of live shows didn’t kill them. If anything, their sound expanded from their late 90s electropop smash hits like “OK! Do You Want Something Simple” to positive, emotionally gripping rock tunes like the Oh No Ono-esque “Made For You” off Explode. Oddly, they ditched the frills of their former albums — like entire orchestras and countless guest musicians — yet the sound got bigger.

“I think, 17 years after our start, it’s good to try it all again from the beginning,” said keys/electronics master Nuno, John’s brother. “I think that a band with a long duration like us needs a record like this. For inspiration. It’s almost like an oxygen balloon that you need to keep you alive.”

Positive thinking and bright colors are The Gift’s hallmarks, right down to the pastel keyboards. For Explode, they based their album art around a trip to the Holi festival in rural India, where they were doused from head to toe.

“We always wanted this album to be an explosion of color, of joy, of happiness, and positivity,” John said. “It was the perfect location…we were there a week celebrating the festival with a local photographer in the temples, throwing the traditional colored powder at each other. All the while we understood that all of the people around us were so happy with so little.”

The band chooses to go DIY in order to get away with stunts like these.

“We like to control the video clips, we like to control the photo sessions, and we like to control the studio,” said John, who, for 17 years has had to explain the band’s laissez faire ways and was likely citing a script. “We don’t know what it is to have a label saying ‘you have this budget, you have two weeks do it.’ If we want to do an album, we have to finance the album with sponsors or with money we get from the tour, or whatever, but we do it. It’s completely do it yourself.”

On Sonia: From Misfit to Gay Icon

In the days leading up to their explosive (for lack of a better word) Madrid show, the band ambled through their daily admin. When you manage yourself, it means carrying your own crap uphill. It means beaming at journalists, sponsors, hotel staff, and incompetent cab drivers when you’re too jetlagged to exist.

And if you’re Sonia Tavares, it means doing it all in heels.

Sonia is the only starlet I know whose persona is more glam offstage than on. Onstage, she’s all comfy sneakers, homemade hammer pants, and hair pinned back — the Gwen Stefani of yesteryear. Offstage, she’s Bettie Page bangs, rhinestone specs, and heels — a pinup.

“I can’t wear heels on stage because, in the shows, we’re always jumping. I like to create my own clothes. I have so many inspirations, like Galliano. Well not Galliano. Not now, it’s a shame,” she said, shying away from the Dior designer’s recent anti-semitic rants. “Our music is so full of hope, we have to present ourselves that way.”

Now the star of the band, it’s hard to belie - MTVIggy - By Halley Bondy

¦The Gift play a mixture of electronics and pop, melded with the dark, brooding vocals of singer Sonia Tavares, who is much admired by Mariza. They started out listening to British bands such as Portishead and Massive Attack and became national celebrities by doing everything themselves, from management to running their own studio and label. Earnings from their hefty local sales are "invested" as they move into the international market by visiting trade fairs or playing concerts abroad. The band insist they have a distinctive style. "The songs have an elegance that is maybe Portuguesea" said Sonia, "and we have a melancholic side - but not as dark as fado".
For Nuno Goncalves, their keyboard player, the aim is to "break the rule that Portugal is only fado". "Being Portuguese is not a problema" he insisted. "We have great fado and electronics and pop. Portuguese music is the best-kept secret in Europe."
Robin Denselow
in The Guardian - 2005-11-18
- The Guardian - UK

What does it means a show of The Gift? It means floating during more than an hour, surrounded by a mix of sounds which appear to be difficult to be put together. It means breathing the creativity of a Portuguese band for which the roof doesn't exist - Time Out - London edition -