Manuel Gardner Fernandes takes percussive electric guitar to new heights with the astounding Right Hand King

At the tail end of 2019, Unprocessed guitar luminary and Instagram star Manuel Gardner Fernandes made headlines when now-pal Jared Dines claimed “hands don’t glitch like that”. We’re here to say that, uh, yeah, they definitely do, and this jaw-dropping performance of new track, Right Hand King, is definitive proof.

In the single-take video, Fernandes takes his trademark percussive muting to new heights with a volley of rapid-fire right-hand mutes, while throwing in tapped slides and a wealth of melodic hooks.

And for anyone who doubts Manuel’s enviable abilities, we’ve included the video with the raw audio below.

As for how he honed his ability, Gardner says, “I started playing metal when I was a kid and already started playing downstrokes back then. After that, I kind of started combining Latin styles, and at some point I wanted to integrate dead sounds and notes. I found a way to play it the fastest and tightest way possible to make it sound sick.”

While he insists he doesn’t have much of a warm-up routine for superhuman performances like these, Gardner did have some tried-and-test gear for the clip: the Synergy TDLX module, teamed with Guitar Rig 5 and his beloved Ibanez AZ, as well as one unconventional secret formula.

“For the weird octave stuff in the fingerpicking part, I used Ableton to transpose an octave up,” he reveals. “The sound in that DAW is super-dry, clear and weird.”

Oh, and before you ask, Right Hand King was planned long before buddy Tim Henson unleashed his own ‘God Hand’ video, so there’s no competition here.

You can, however, see the pair throw down on Unprocessed’s recent banger, Real, which features Henson and Polyphia bandmate Clay Gober. Watch it below.