French producer Onra and Seattle collective SunTzu Sound start with similar musical sources, but where they go from there is decidedly different. Onra plucks samples from everything from early 80s NYC disco to Brazilian funk records to, on the Les Chinoiseries album, Vietnamese pop, and then reconfigures them into Dilla-esque instrumental hip hop suites, choppy, heady, grooving like a skipped record. The beats are brought to the fore, but underneath, Onra keeps a layer of soulful vocal muffle and melody. SunTzu Sound bring a similarly soulful vibe, but where Onra slices and shuffles into slurred hip hop patterns, SunTzu nudges things up into house and broken beat territory, doing their rhythmic juggling and melodic cut-ups over a steady 4/4 bass pulse. Its electronic music with a fluttering human heartbeat, done two ways. With DJ 100Proof. ERIC GRANDY
Mon., March 14, 8 p.m., 2011
