Parisian beatsmith Onra (known to the government as Arnaud Bernard) is a hip-hop purist from the J Dilla-Madlib school of deep crate digging. That’s deep crate-digging, Mariana Trench deep. Up to your eyeballs in obscure old vinyl for countless hours, dust under your fingernails, even-your-socks-are-gonna-smell-like-mildew-after-this deep.
His 2007 full-length Chinoiseries was the result of some serious record-store excavation on a 2006 trip to Vietnam, and it seems he’s been back once or twice since. The sequel, aptly titled Chinoiseries Pt. 2, soon to drop on Dublin label All City, is a sprawling 32-track epic of roughly two-minute beats, diverse from beat to beat but with an encouraging thematic consistency, fusing distinctly Eastern string arrangements and jingly-jangly percussive elements with big, bad drums and warm bass tones with a comforting vintage jazz feel (via Potholes In My Blog).
Shout out to Jay Cuaki for hookin' me up with the artist. Swing by his Soundcloud page for some smoove cuts and beats.
Download: Chinoiseries Pt.2 by Onra
Track List:
01. The Arrival
02. A New Dynasty
03. It's All Memories
04. Remember The Name
05. Open The Door
06. Gotta Go
07. Mai's Theme
08. Words Of Encouragement
09. Trapped
10. One For The Wu
11. No Matter What
12. Meet The Queen
13. Stay With Me
14. Opium Delirium
15. Cold Blooded
16. Where I'm From
17. Still Broke
18. Snakes & Smoke
19. Mai's Theme
20. Raw Shit
21. Ms. Ho
22. All Night
23. In My Mind
24. Hide And Seek
25. Play The Game
26. Warrior's Pride
27. Like Father, Like Son
28. Fight Or Die
29. Through The Flesh
30. Tears Of Joy
31. They Got Breaks Two
32. The End
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