A sardined crowd piled into Revolver’s intimate upstairs room on Thursday night to soak up some sweaty electronic beats provided by the hyped French producer, Onra.
The night started with a string of sets from similarly inclined producers – Amin Payne, Nam and Sean Deans – who all took their cues from the golden era of 90s R’n’B. Is there a better indication of the support DJs successfully amping up the room than a random twerk-off in the crowd? Probably not.
After three satisfying sets of head-nodding hip-hop beats it eventually hit midnight, which only meant one thing: it was time for the man on everyone’s lips to take over the decks.
Right on cue, Onra casually strolled onto the stage in a plain black t-shirt without making any fuss. For those who hadn’t done a Google image search beforehand it might’ve been easy to mistake the lean Frenchman for a soundcheck guy, but when he spoke into the mic with his thick accent, everyone knew this wasn’t just an employee or some kind of cruel mirage created by the sweltering heat.
“Thanks for coming out y’all, are you ready to do this shit?” Needless to say, we were.
The set began with a string of tracks from his two Asian-inspired albums, 2008’s Chinoiseries I and its sonic sequel Chinoiseries II from 2012. Oriental-tinged hip hop instrumentals ‘Fight Or Die’ and ‘A New Dynasty’ were played back-to-back and immediately raised the temperature levels by a few degrees.
‘The Anthem’ easily produced the biggest reaction of the night. As soon as its soaring, choppy sample of a Vietnamese violin burst through the amps it raised a sea of arms moving back and forth in a synchronised frenzy.
We were then departed from Vietnam and crossed into the territory of 2010’s Long Distance; the record largely responsible for shooting Onra into the blogosophere’s spotlight when it was awarded a revered 8.0 by Pitchfork.
‘High Hopes’, ‘L.O.V.E’ and ‘My Comet’ all transported the night back to the early 90s, and while this is the reigning buzz-phrase for producers to attach to their sounds, Onra does it authentically by playing live without a laptop and sticking exclusively to vintage hardware.
After a nostalgic trip through an eclectic back catalogue of R’n’B jams reminding everyone of the Parisian producer’s versatility, he decided to treat the tiny room to some sneak peaks of unreleased material.
“That’s a new song with Q-Tip, that shit hasn’t come out yet,” Onra proudly announced after the first of these never-before-heard tracks – a smooth synth-laden anthem that will undoubtedly reignite the internet when it officially drops.
Another one featured vocals that sounded suspiciously similar to The Weeknd, especially considering Onra recently let slip to Acclaim that the Canadian artist had sent him some vocals for an upcoming collaboration.
We were also treated to his unreleased remix of Disclosure’s ‘F For You’ which was slowed to a grinding pace with a truer pre-millennium feel than its original; a perfect way to draw the night to a close.
“Thank you – don’t know what to say,” Onra uttered after going 30 minutes overtime, much to the delight of his loyal audience who had just collectively experienced a classic boiler room set ticking every essential box, plus a couple more.
