For the past decade, one of Macau’s most successful local bands was undoubtably Turtle Giant, the Indie Rock trio of brothers Beto and Frederico Ritchie, with António Vale da Conceição on guitar and bass. Together they released three albums, played concerts around the world and even had some of their songs featured on soundtracks of popular TV series like One Tree Hill, 90210, Ghost Whisperer and Supergirl.
Today the members have gone their separate ways for now, and António (also known as Kiko) is currently based in Portugal pursuing his solo career. In June this year, he released his new EP entitled At Your Service Ma’am, following on from his previous album Four Hands Piano released in 2021. The first track from his new EP, Remedy invites the audience to reflect on the strange times in which we are living and resist having our thoughts manipulated by the onslaught of information and misinformation present in our daily lives. Censorship, fake news, social media, polarization – the remedy, as the song suggests, “is in your mind”.
The latest song from the EP, Slower, came out just last month, promoted by The Donut Works, a collective of songwriters from Portugal, Los Angeles and Macau. More tracks are scheduled to be released in December.
“I’ve always sought independence from any kind of label or contractual obligations or managers or third parties that tell me what to do,” says António. “There’s an obvious trade-off by doing that – one stays at the margin of a bigger market. However, the music entertainment ecosystem is a ruthless one that does obligate you to be at mercy of the market itself.”
On the other hand, the singer, songwriter, musician and producer, does see a lot of new opportunities in the music industry.
“I think that the business perspective of a music artist has greatly expanded since ‘the good old days’ of records and concert tickets sales. The traditional jobs for musicians have transformed in quite revolutionary ways to make a profit and make music at the same time. And I think that it’s the nature of collaboration that music has that brings a variety of options such as composing soundtracks for films, TV, video games, doing events or producing beats, creating sample libraries and catalogues, music production software, music for radio and podcasts – the list goes on and on.”
As well as making his own music, António works as a content producer and creator for software company Cubewise.
“Don’t be confused, I’m not a programmer or a software engineer,” he clarifies. “I work very closely with these professionals in our Creative and Communications department, being part of a team of creatives that serve these software engineers. Cubewise develops content for projects such as advertising, documentaries, reportage, podcasts and Explainer Videos. And it includes a lot of music making. I was fortunate to meet a group of people that think very much outside of the box.”
A major project he was involved in for Cubebox was the production of a feature length documentary called Beyond the Spreadsheet: The story of TM1 which he directed and composed the soundtrack for. The film won the Best Documentary Prize at the Anatolia Film Festival in 2021 and has been screened at film festivals around the world. It tells the life story and technical contribution of mathematical genius Manny Perez, who, in 1983 created the Functional Database, which allows us to effectively manage vast amounts of complex data.
Like most musicians around the world, António has had to deal with the impact of COVID, but ultimately found some positives in the whole situation.
“I found that the COVID period opened a bunch of doors. It made me see myself as more of a producer than a performer,” he reflects. “I’ve always enjoyed composing and writing. And these days I think I find myself taking more pleasure in writing for someone or something, rather than performing and running around on tours. So in that sense it was profitable for me since many musicians and producers were seeking each other out online to collaborate and create, to keep themselves busy and do online releases.”
“I’ve been recording music extensively for the past three years and I had a lot of time and space to focus on just writing without distractions and to revisit a lot of my past. So recently it’s been time dedicated to releasing and producing parallel content, like music videos and posters and covers, etc.” he adds.
Nowadays, the live music scene in Portugal is getting back to normal, and for now António is enjoying his time there.
“The ‘ecosystem’ here really has recovered since the lockdown days. Many of my colleagues and friends in the music business have now gone back to ‘normality’,” he notes. “Portugal is renowned for having amazing Summer music festivals, and outside the festival circuit you’ll find bars, underground venues, galleries, rooftops that all offer live music entertainment. It’s a cultural aspect of Portugal for sure and the Portuguese are also known to be a great crowd. Everyone sees the benefits of creating live music events all year round, which is great for musicians, event production companies and small businesses.”
And as things get back to normal here, would he consider returning?
“I will always consider working in Macau. I feel like any chance I get to come and visit Macau I will take it.”
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From an apartment on the busy avenue of Rua do Campo to performing with industry greats on thousands of stages all around the world, the musical journey of João Caetano has been quite remarkable. As he prepares to launch his latest EP this month, João chats with CLOSER and reflects on his impressive career so far.
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