CultureLoad

Ohrange: “Our attitude: Easy Living“

Their feel-good-music makes people dream, relax and have fun.

For Manulo (20), guitarist and singer of the band Ohrange, and the percussionist Sidl (27) their music goes hand in hand with their attitude. “Locker vom Hocker” (Engl.: without the slightest effort) is not only the title for their album but also their motto to always be stress-free. When they try to describe their own music, they however make their life more complicated than necessary: "Acoustic, alternative singer-songwriter-Reggae-Hippie-Surffolkpop" is what they call their style. A bit of Hawaiian atmosphere, a bit of the Californian surfer mentality, a bit of The Beatles and a bit of Jack Johnson and we have what they call the Ohrange-Sound. But they seem to be right when they say: “Actually, our influences are everywhere.”

Ohrange first met on the stairs in the house they both lived in where they exchanged their opinions about Manulo’s singing skills when taking showers. Unfortunately, Sidl moved away shortly after that and they lost contact for a while. “Then, out of pure coincidence, we met again.” Manulo reports. “I told him about the music I had been making and very luckily he liked what I was doing. Wow, isn’t that a heart-touching story? And right now we have been making music together for about 1,5 years.”

And whenever their Ohrange-sound is wanted, they play live concerts, this summer they even play a few shows in Barcelona. They do not really care how many people come to these concerts as long as the people who are there will go home with a smile on their face having enjoyed the music. For information on the upcoming concerts everyone can go to the MySpace site of Ohrange (www.myspace.com/ohrangemusic). And if anybody is interested in booking them for a concert, they can send a message to manulo.music [at] web.de.

It is pretty obvious that music is extremely important for both of them. ”Music connects people, no matter what language they speak. It can change emotions and mood. And it's fun. For every situation there is at least one song that fits, that’s unbelievable.” Their passion for music also slips in their work. Right now Manulo works for an institution called Jugendwerkstatt that helps young people to integrate in the job market and Sidl works in a kindergarten where the kids listen to music very often. “The children there just see how much fun music is for me and that way they will probably become interested in listening and making music themselves. I think it’s important that children grow up with music because it helps them to creatively live out their feelings which is very important.”

For their future they hope that there will still be people who listen to their music and can identify with it. “The feeling to realize that people really dig our music is so overwhelming.” Everybody who wants to explore that unique Ohrange-sound can easily do that. The album “Locker vom Hocker” is available for downloads on CultureLoad.

Nora Frei
Editorial Team