When even DJ Premier states that this boy has the necessary amount of funk, and when Guilty Simpson even officially makes Brenk his favorite European Beatmaker, there is not much more needing to be said about his producer-skills. Through the 23 docking stations on Gumbo 2 (Pretty Ugly), which, in the spirit of the Donuts, hardly ever cross the 2-minutes-mark, Brenk allows the listener to dive straight into his sound-cosmos. This cosmos is almost impossible to put into words, the closest would be to describe it as a healthy mix between Eastcoast-BoomBap, Westcoast-Low-Rider-Anthems and Detroit-Underground. It’s even harder to make out the actual highlights of the second part of the Gumbo-series. Every beat is pumping away in an easygoing and extremely varied manner and all parts fit together tesselately to form a big sound-collage. When it comes to the samples, it’s easy to make out Brenk’s fondness for the Soul of the 60s and 70s. But that doesn’t mean that there weren’t all kinds of obscure and psychedelic sounds, Latin-American melodies and P-Funk-tracks sent through the MPC. It’s the characteristic drum-programming and the analog synth-lines that differentiate Brenk’s productions from the ones by other nice beat-fiddlers. Through his premo-connection, the Austrian-born producer even had a childhood dream come true: to produce a full length album for MC Eiht. Allegedly, Which Way is West has already been finished and yet another album together with Miles Bonny as S3 (Super Soul Shit) is already standing in the starting blocks. But until then, Gumboy 2 – Brenk’s third instrumental-album within only three years – can keep on rotating for a little longer, preferably on vinyl, as the habitual MPM-manner suggests. It’s a HipHop instrumental record with the utmost grasp of contemporary developments.
Gumbo 2: Pretty Ugly
