Day 3 | Momo Festival | ‘MANOS

Inspired by the crate digging sets of Antal and Palms Trax, the brothers Ramón and Frank van Gammeren forged a plan: make propulsive music that fuses influences from all over the world together. The fundamentals for ‘MANOS were already in place: Ramón has a background in folk music and film composition, whereas Frank is active as a drummer and DJ. For six whole years, the two noodled away at their sound and live-set, fusing the best ingredients of a DJ and a live band together. As a result, their music offers a wonderful excess of textures, moods and stylistics – they can build up to a summit that feels downright emotional and majestic. But there’s also a playful freedom to improvise in ‘MANOS – instrumentation like percussion and guitars add an infectious physicality to their live sets. Indeed, ‘MANOS’s music is positively genre-less and that seems precisely the point: all their elements they use are fine tuned to make both body and spirit transcend to new levels. In the end, it’s all about the letting go.