PEACHES
Impeach My Bush
XL Records
· There’s still only one peach with the hole in the middle. Peaches plays on Saturday, August 12 at MacEwan Ballroom (U of C).
You’ve seen her strutting her stuff in spandex microshorts and spitting raps with Iggy Pop, sporting a full beard (on the cover of her last album Fatherfucker) and laying the smack-down on some unsuspecting chump in a clip on Station X, but you’ve never seen Merrill Nisker (a.k.a. Peaches) like this – prettily poised and as close to respectable as she’s likely to get. Shocking! Truly and utterly out of character and greatly disappointing to those of us who have come to know and love her irreverent, profane, vulgar, hypnotic, seductive and completely fearless approach to the limp-wristed world of electronic hippity-hop.
Boisterous, spine-tingling, gut-clenching, jaw-dropping, raw ’n’ ready noise is what we expect to hear when we drop one of her shiny ’n’ subversive discs into our eagerly gaping slots, but no – here we are denied. Sugarcoating her down and dirty persona, Peaches brings forth a new and "approved" version of the lascivious egomaniacal woman on the verge. Shunting forth a highly polished, high-pitched, nonsensical and disco-ready version of her signature groovebox-on-crack sound, she bumps and grinds her way through 13 tidied-up tracks that with a few exceptions ("Boys Wanna Be Her" and "You Love It" featuring Joan Jett) offer more glam than clam.
PEACHES
Impeach My Bush
XL Records
· Very hot and very qualified to get slapped with a parental advisory sticker.
When male artists use language like this, they’re high-fived on TRL and sell enough records to buy a fleet of Maybachs. Inexplicably, a woman using language this fierce is certainly going to ruffle some feathers, but if anyone is up for a worthwhile fight, it’s Merrill "Peaches" Nisker.
A former folk musician residing in downtown Toronto, Peaches made the transition to politically charged electro-rock in 2000. Until moving to Los Angeles last year, she was living in Berlin and setting flamboyantly redefined gender roles to steamy beats. No matter where she hangs her metallic bikini, Peaches has consistently slugged away at double standards by stretching them to humorous and often unfathomable exaggerations.
On her third album, Impeach My Bush, the music is finally as bombastic as the lyrics. Impeach My Bush is a fresh electro romp with a wild feminist and punk spirit. From the hypnotic "Downtown" to the audacious "Tent in Your Pants," Peaches has masterminded a virile dance record. Rock ’n’ roll flourishes come courtesy of guest players Joan Jett ("You Love It"), Joshua Homme ("Give ’er") and The Gossip’s Beth Ditto ("Two Guys"). Feist, a former roommate of Peaches, makes an appearance as does Samantha Maloney, one of the two drummers behind the Eagles of Death Metal.
Peaches may be the first female to use lyrics this inflammatory, which has made her a hot topic in gender studies at the University of Toronto. Regardless of whether or not people can wrap their heads around her unapologetic lyrics, Peaches’ music is undeniably incendiary. The overall package is one big fat exclamation mark that many will feel is long overdue.
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