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The instrumental album "Gumbo", released in 2008, marked the beginning of Brenk Sinatra's international career as a producer. Voted one of the top 20 best instrumental albums of all time by the German JUICE magazine, "Gumbo" made the leap out of Austria with its rough and at the same time very soulful, sample-based instrumentals and put Brenk’s producer skills in the spotlight for the first time.
The follow-up "Gumbo II" was released in 2011 via the Cologne-based label MPM, which helped ignite the growing hype around instrumental hip-hop with Brenk Sinatra and other exceptional producers on board. Brenk's uncompromising second part of the Gumbo series catapulted him into the ranks of the most sought-after beat producers in Europe. Since then, the third and final part of the Gumbo series was also in the planning stage, but the ever-increasing number of musical projects and not least the pressure to top the first two album parts prevented Brenk from completing his instrumental trilogy. The folder with the instrumentals selected for it grew to well over 100 beats, was partially deleted and constantly changed in its composition, until Brenk stopped the targeted collection of Gumbo material in 2017 for the time being. At that time, Brenk made a stylistic shift that led him away from classic, sample-based beats to those laid-back trap hybrids that are now known as his trademark sound. Also, the mindset to complete "Gumbo III" would not settle and other projects were brought forward until the album took a complete back seat. Over the years, fans and journalists were repeatedly put off by Brenk when asked about a release date and "Gumbo III" became an eagerly awaited phantom project.
Fast forward to the year 2021: for the first time in four years Brenk clicks through the folder with the interludes, musical sketches and already finished beats once produced for "Gumbo III". With a new label and publishing situation in the background (in 2021 Brenk founded the music label Wave Planet Records as well as the associated publishing company Wave Planet Publishing) he makes the decision that the time is now ripe for the completion of the Gumbo trilogy and Wave Planet Records must become the new home of this project. This is followed by weeks of painstaking restoration of the instrumentals produced between 2012 and 2016. Brenk's focus was to keep the musical spirit of the instrumentals unchanged and not to modernize the sound. From today's perspective, "Gumbo III" bursting with countless vinyl samples sounds like Brenk's earlier beats, anachronistic and refreshingly different precisely because of that. The only update allowed for the "Gumbo III" instrumentals was a new mix by Brenk and mastering by his top-notch producer colleague Dexter.
The perfect visual complement to the Gumbo sound universe is provided by the playful cover artwork, bursting with details, by Cone The Weird, who already provided the striking artwork for the "Gumbo II" album.
The completion of the trilogy will be celebrated among other things with a very special "Gumbo Trilogy Box", which will be released in November 2022 and will make the heart of every passionate collector beat faster. |
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