Onra — Chinoiseries

Chinoiseries is a quirky and very oriental/Asian tinged instrumental hip-hop album that’s built around samples from 30 records brought by Onra on a trip to Vietnam. It’s an interesting and risky concept to use such a limited sample focus, but for the most  part this remains enjoyable and rewarding.

Over the 32 tracks and just shy of 50 minute running time of Chinoiseries  Onra mixers in with his hip-hop beat craft all manner of :aged Asian pop, Asian funk and 70’s rock, tai chi instruction records, dramatic oriental soundtracks, twanging Asian string easy listening, film samples ect. And as with many instrumental Hip-hop albums the tracks here are fairly short around a minute to just shy of two minutes. But thankful unlike a lot of Hip-hop instrumental records Onra mangers to keep the tracks tuneful, quirky and never too show-offy, building an vibe effectively but never over stretching an idea. On the whole an enjoyable, quirky and original hip-hop and beat bound record.