Style: Instrumental hip hop
Primary Emotions/Themes: East Asian history
Thoughts: Three years later Onra returns with the second entry in his exceptionally creative instrumental hip hop series focused on lost music from far East Asia. The last few years have brought both progression and some growth to the musical format started on part 1.
The basic formula remains the same: old recordings that have likely never been heard by a vast majority of the world's population. These records have been sampled and distilled down to small snippets of themselves.
The samples are then transformed into the hip hop album known as Chinoiseries. Beats are added, the samples are looped, and the whole thing comes together beautifully. Where part 2 differs from part 1 is in the quality of the reconstructions.
Part 1 was a collection of snap shots of different music that had been collected in Onra's journeys. It didn't feel like the tracks belonged together in an album, but were more of singular instances thrown together in a collection. Part 2 takes the idea of being an album seriously.
These tracks belong together. They are transformed in such a way that the tracks blend into each other and create a cohesive flow than the jerky transitions from part 1. The tracks also have progression to them, it's not the same loop played over and over. Different layers are added, subtracted, and even manipulated to produce a sound pleasing to the ears.
Part 2 sees Onra refining his craft from the original collection. This is modern instrumental hip hop at its best, and is one of the main reasons why I love this genre so much. Things only get better in Part 3.
Written November 14th 2023.
No comments:
Post a Comment