in 2006, french-vietnamese dj-producer onra returned to the homeland of his grandparents in saigon, and returned not only with a bit of heritage, but also a crateful of old chinese and vietnamese vinyl records. the cuts from these findings formed the album he called chinoiseries, a delightful deconstruction of the oriental sounds from the perspective of a dj formerly disconnected from his past, but now piecing it together through his own hybridized worldview. the album was released at the start of the year, but i’d only stumbled upon it last week; since then, though, it’s been gaining much airtime on my stereo, especially one of the early standouts, “the anthem”. armed with a chinese big-band sound, the rousing violins (how often can they be described thus?) match perfectly the repeated Chinese lyrical couplet (i can’t quite make out the first half, but the second refers to the fantastical mentality of pearls!). such a gem, this one.
mp3: onra – the anthem
the album is now back in stock at boomkat. get it!
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