One of the Portuguese bands you will hear in our hotel – Tings Lisbon – is the super pop act The Gift who just released some of their best music ever.[/caption]

Like in Kathmandu we will play the best local music we know when our hotel opens in Lisbon.

In Portugal one of them will be The Gift with the charismatic Sonia Tavares on vocals. In September 2016 one of our big inspirations – Brian Eno – tweeted about his collaboration with the band and their first results: The single Love Without Violins that he not only co-wrote and produced. He also joined Sonia Tavares on vocals something he never does. The track is a fantastic pop song that reminds me a bit of Eno & Karl Hynde’s (Underworld) release in 2014. I usually never blog about singles – I want to hear the whole album. The same reason why I didn’t blog when i heard the 2nd fantastic release from the now named album The Altar. I still wanted to hear the album. [caption id="attachment_21485" align="aligncenter" width="1000"]

On 17 April The Gift performs Altar at CCB – tickets are on sale here. But hurry – they are selling fast.[/caption]

This morning I woke got two excuses for sharing The Gift’s music.

I woke up to more news: On Wednesday 17 April The Gift performs Altar one of our favorite Venues: Fundação Centro Cultural de Belém aka CCB. A concert that will sell out fast. Then I got my morning message from Eno – the daily card from my app version of his and Peter Schmidt’s Oblique Strategies: Always the first steps – it said. I took that as a signal to buy the tickets, share the news, the music and our passion for the great Portuguese pop act. No reason to wait untill April when the album is released. So here is the music – enjoy. [soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/playlists/303272404″ params=”auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true” width=”100%” height=”450″ iframe=”true” /]

It’s not very often Eno lends his voice to another artist

The idea for ‘Love Without Violins’ came out of Sonia’s startling voice. She sings in exactly the same register as me (I think it’s called baritone) but has a couple of extra octaves at the top – so she’s a sort of baritone soprano. How I envy those extra octaves.

Anyway, she was singing this song over this dark, dangerous sonic landscape – it didn’t have many words at first – but I got a picture of a scenario where a different kind of love was being performed. Her voice suggested a woman of supreme, almost scornful confidence, someone who likes to play with people who like to be played with. I wanted this idea of a kind of love that wasn’t pink and fluffy and adolescent, but had undertones – and overtones – of control and surrender, of people prepared to go all the way to the limits of their imaginations.

I think it may be the only time I’ve written the word ‘love’ in any song…but it’s not puppy love I was talking about. It’s tough love. Love without violins.

Brian Eno to CLASH who had Love Without Violins as Track Of The Day when the track was released on 16 September 2016