Practi cally every piece I read on Marcel Fengler presents him as the criminally underrated underdog of the Ostgut Ton stable. He’s not there just yet, we’re told, but he’s well on his way. While I can’t wait to see him finally break out of this cycle of proto-hype, I tend to agree with this assessment. The guy can do battle with the best of them as a DJ, but his records — spritely techno built up from tense, twitchy loops — have yet to feel truly essential. But on his latest release, the Thwack EP for Luke Slater’s Mote Evolver imprint, Fengler feels like he might finally be leaping out of the whirlpool. Bigger, punchier, and more self-assured than his previous string of 12″s for Ostgut Ton, the Thwack EP doesn’t just sound like the work of a hungry young producer; he sounds like he’d eat the whole party sub at the coming-out soiree we critics finally owe him.