Onra

Chinoiseries

Onra is Arnaud Antoine Rene Bernard, born on May 15, 1981 in Trier, Germany, who moved to France at three and to Paris in 2000 for studies. He graduated from business school in 2006 with a marketing degree, intending to start a label. His instrument is an Akai MPC1000, and he attended the 2008 Red Bull Music Academy in Barcelona. A first trip to Vietnam in 2006 brought back more than 30 Chinese and Vietnamese records from the 1960s and 70s, found in Saigon per Mixmag Asia, and those became Chinoiseries (November 19, 2007, Label Rouge Prod, catalogue LRPBBR01).

Chinoiseries has 32 instrumental tracks in about fifty minutes, with proceeds pledged to the association La goutte d'eau, and Abcdr du Son's Shadok called it a musical postcard of Ho Chi Minh City, citing RZA and Wu-Tang, Shaw Brothers films and J Dilla as influences. Chinoiseries Pt. 2 (All City, 2011) was 32 beats like a sequence of film scenes, per Fact, and Pt. 3 followed on March 10, 2017; the trilogy was reissued on coloured vinyl in 2023. Other records are Tribute with Quetzal (2006), The Big Payback with Byron (2007), 1.0.8 (2009), Long Distance (2010, Pitchfork 8.0 per Wikipedia), Deep in the Night (EP, 2012), Fundamentals (2015, with Daz Dillinger and Black Milk), Nobody Has to Know (2018), Swing Convention (2020), Nosthaigia (2024) and After Dark (2026). He played the Detroit Electronic Music Festival in 2013, and setlist.fm lists 50 shows, most in the US and Australia, the latest at RISING in Melbourne on June 15, 2024.