Within a Sky Full of Earth

An example of perseverance and confidence. Nuno, Sónia, Miguel and John are the fabulous four that together brought The Gift to life.
What started as a small side project in 1994, in the small, but great city of Alcobaça, Portugal, when most of them were still teenagers, with the intention of experimenting new sounds, gained a path of its own, and is now their main, huge life project.
The first time I saw The Gift in concert was in the tiny, intimate Bar “Labirintho”, Porto, late 1996. They were not famous yet, even though they were being spoken of, in the backstage of music world. I was fascinated with their music, and having known them for so long, made it even more thrilling! Some of their influences were Portishead, Divine Comedy, Jay Jay Johanson and many more.
By that time, they had in hand their first never sold in music stores album, Digital Atmosphere, and the sound of the synthesizers together with Sonia’s strong voice was definitely a perfect match.
Who would say that not a single editor in Portugal agreed to sponsor their project, so they decided they had the grounds to keep the project alive, and so started to edit their own albums in their home studio. Giving up? NO WAY!!!
Their first distributed album - Vinyl (end of 1998) became a huge success, and combined the potentials of new technologies (samplers and synthesisers) with classical instruments (violins, cello, trumpet, saxophone…). The new concept of it was shaking everyone, and those Labels that ignored them before started to be interested in them. Well… so much for interest… now The Gift were the ones ignoring those Labels. They bravely decided that they would do it all themselves and commited to their project. All this and no deadlines, no pressures and all the freedom for not having any editors.
They were invited to share the stage with famous singers and bands and soon after they started “Vinyl Tour" abroad (when I say abroad, I mean every continent!!).
From then on, they were famous and still are. They won the MTV Europe Award for Best Portuguese Act in 2005. They have now loads of side projects with other singers and bands everywhere!


And in what matters to us here in Macau, @ BLOOM, The Gift have been present and supported our project since our day 1. A big THANKS to The Gift!
I should also ask when are you planning to delight us again here in Macau? ;-)

Complete Discography:
1. 1997 - Digital Atmosphere
2. 1998 - Vinyl
3. 2001 - Film
4. 2004 - AM-FM
5. 2006 - Fácil de Entender
[All their history here]
For daily info log on to THEIR BLOG.