ONRA – CHINOISERIES, PART 2
- Author:
- Cameron Barnett
- Posted:
- Monday, 23 January 2012
In 2006, Parisian hip-hop producer Onra travelled to Vietnam, returning with a stack of old Chinese vinyl. It was from these that he constructed the 2007 album Chinoiseries, which saw traditional Chinese folk samples melded with quirky hip-hop beats. Chinoiseries was widely praised, enough so that Onra felt it appropriate to follow it up four years later with Part 2. Like the original, Part 2 features thirty brief showcases of samples and beats – not strictly songs, but enough to satisfy interest and get the point across. The music is rich and quirky, with a swagger like able to Flying Lotus. Ranging from what sounds like kung-fu soundtrack snippets (It’s All Memories) to the gongs and chanting of the court (Meet the Queen), the samples are undeniably infectious. However, Part 2 unashamedly sticks to the ‘if-it-ain’t-broke-don’t-fix-it’ code. Unfortunately, this means that it has the same pitfalls at the first Chinoiseries. These include the brevity (the average track length is two minutes) and the fact that each track follows an identical formula, making thirty tracks seem like overkill. Although Onra should be praised for an effective mixing of East and West, Part 2 surely marks an exhaustion of this particular idea.
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Story posted on Monday, 23 January 2012, filed under CD Reviews. Follow responses via the RSS feed.
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