Lowfish: Frozen & Broken

Toronto's Lowfish has quietly become a prolific producer of "real" electro - the Detroity kind, and on Frozen & Broken we see him up the ante with some four-on-the-floor selections and Italo vibes, while taking his proven electro sound to a new level, just in time for the Canadian winter. I peaked at the seventh song, Engines, where Lowfish breaks down his swirling world of analog synth stabs to an unfathomably crunk trip-hop tempo reminiscent of Warp classics. Cementing his stature as a great electro producer, and continuing to plunder the lo-fi devices from where he draws his name, Lowfish will find a deservedly larger fan base as he continues to experiment with different beats and styles.

Steve Lalla

Lowfish - Frozen & Broken
Dark Techno Finally Finds The Light Again

Where has minimal, brooding techno been all these years? Actual techno - not the ignorant man’s umbrella term for the vast gamut of electronic music out there. Where has it been? Festering on the borders of our musical subconscious, that’s where. Now, Toronto’s Gregory De Rocher aka Lowfish, attempts to bring the brooding squiggles and pulsing drum patters back to the forefront of our imagination with Frozen & Broken.
  Frozen & Broken is an ultra-modern dune buggy ride through the desolate ruins of future cities. The jagged electronic whirs and wavering synth pads that De Rocher employs stir up a hallowed wasteland, on which the remnants of decadence and industry can be found. Tracks like “Things Fall Apart” and “Knives” weave straight-ahead drum punctuations with strained electronic scrapes and crunches - a measured back drop to the stringent use of overwrought synthesizer melodies that struggle to be heard and then disintegrate into nothingness. De Rocher’s attempt to create an album that simmers in manic disquiet yet never boils over is achieved through the mere consistency of distopian imagery that Frozen & Broken tends to evoke.
  However, even with its brooding conceptual implications carrying the album to its conclusion, there is a desire for something more. More tones to feast on, more atmosphere to be immersed within. Frozen & Broken does nothing to impress beyond its self-imposed limitations. Listening to the unhealthy tones of “The Bite That Bleeds” you realize the album would be a fitting addition to a film like Fight Club, if that movie didn’t already have a fantastic soundtrack by the Dust Brothers. De Rocher doesn’t quite find that visceral insidiousness that the Dust Brothers manage to achieve, but the effort is consistent and enjoyable nonetheless.

Michael Tenzer

Canadian electronica with a new wave edge

Lowfish – the clue is in the name – they’re lo-fi-ish – geddit? There’s a definite feeling of the early eighties here – whether it’s Kraftwerk Dadaism, or the more conventional synth sound of bands like Japan and OMD, there’s a distinct whiff of Blitz Club and mad haircuts with eyeliner. That’s not to say it’s stuck in the past, no sirree – it’s about the fact that Mr Lowfish loves big fat analogue synths, and then sequences them on a laptop to make them sound beaty and modern and lovely. Great stuff – and would mix excellently with the early work of The Human League.

Chris Merriman

Ben Rayner's Reasons To Live

So, if I'm to believe Avril Lavigne, all it takes to be a "rebel" these days is a new Canon digital camera. Whatever happened to greasing your hair back, wearing a leather jacket and careening recklessly around Dead Man's Curve in a hot rod? Or, I dunno, playing rock 'n' roll music? God, I hope the world ends soon.

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Lowfish, Frozen & Broken (Noise Factory). Toronto's Gregory De Rocher is up there with the best when it comes to purist, no-frills electro – "Im/Comfort" from 2000's Eliminator still gives me chills every time I play it – and, bar for bar, Frozen & Broken is probably his most consistent album-length offering yet. Cold, clipped and creepy, cuts like the stealthy body mover "The Bite That Bleeds" and the glistening "Lies" breach new levels of propulsive dance-floor utility without sacrificing the mystery and melody that make Lowfish records such satisfying "slow growers" for home listening.
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Ben Rayner