A fantastic 12" filled with no-nonsense dub techno of the slowly-building variety; "The Journey of Qui Niu" is easily the most dancefloor-oriented thing that the Echospace label has released (though I'm not sure why the artist decided to go with "Son's" rather than "Sons"). I was in a techno club in NYC recently --- The Bunker, which should be far better known than it is --- and hearing this 12" made me immediately think of the banging set that I heard there.  Very good stuff!

Arctic Hospital is Eric Bray, an American techno producer who has released the best 12" and album to date on Gabe Koch's dance-oriented Merck offshoot, Narita Records. "Neon Veils," his second full-length, comes to us by way of an unknown Japanese label (this is its first release), and gives us another sampling of Bray's IDM-inflected techno. The BPMs on this record are a bit higher than usual for the genre, and most of these tracks seem fine-tuned for the dancefloor, where earlier Arctic Hospital material seemed equally applicable to home listening. This material is surgically precise, icy, and devastating. With news of Narita's closing surfacing just a few days ago, it's nice to see other labels popping up to release this type of music.