Marcel Fengler - Enigma EP

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  • Marcel Fengler has long been the dark horse of the Ostgut's techno roster, lost somewhere in the considerable shadow of fellow Berghain residents Ben Klock and that other Marcel. Fengler is a fine producer on his own terms, with a powerfully slamming, bass-centered twist on the label's reduced techno sound. His tracks often incorporate minutely-sliced samples that shake microscopically in dizzying bouts of polyrhythmic motion. Fengler's last release was an unforgiving EP on Luke Slater's Mote Evolver, two almost excessively brutal tracks that set him apart from his fellow Berghainers by virtue of their unrestrained ferocity. Perhaps he's exorcised his demons, then, because his latest EP for usual home Ostgut Ton is a much softer, house-informed affair. "Rapture" is almost polite, leaving aside the quaking thump of his earlier work in exchange for a jacking stomp, though the clipped loops bring to mind the jazzy excursion of 2009's "Twisted Bleach." What's most interesting about these tracks is the applied aging; if "Rapture" is somewhat retro, "RazKaz" is ancient, the roughly filtered string samples creaking and colliding like hyperspeed tectonic plates. Rounding off the trio is the Radiohead-sampling "Enigma," another track that takes Fengler's already-severe looping to an extreme and buries the beat underneath a seasick orchestra of droning tones.
  • Tracklist
      A1 Rapture A2 RazKaz B Enigma
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