Peaches

Peaches is the stage name of Merrill Nisker, a Canada-born electronic artist who is born in 1966 in Toronto and lives and works in Berlin. Her work is associated with dance-punk, electroclash, electronic music and electronica. She is known for songs that focus on sexuality and gender identity, and her lyrics and performances often blur ideas of masculinity and femininity.

Music and style

Peaches plays almost all the instruments on her songs, programs her own electronic beats and produces her records. Her music is openly concerned with sex, identity and the rejection of sanitised portrayals of women in popular music. She identifies herself as a sexual being and uses explicit language and imagery as part of her work.

Her second album, Fatherfucker, features her with a full beard on the cover. She explains the title as part of her use of obscene language in everyday speech, and she describes her view of gender as containing both male and female elements. She rejects the term “penis envy” in favour of “hermaphrodite envy”.

Career and collaborations

Before her music career, Nisker teaches at private schools, although she does not hold a teaching degree. In 1995, she releases Fancypants Hoodlum under her birth name, Merrill Nisker. Her live band members are known as The Herms, including JD Samson, Radio Sloan and Samantha Maloney.

Peaches contributes guest vocals to P!nk’s album Try This on the song “Oh My God”. Her music appears in films including Mean Girls, My Little Eye, Lost in Translation, Waiting and Jackass: Number Two, and it also features in the television series The L Word.

Academic and live recognition

Her lyrics are studied as part of a Queer Studies course at the University of Toronto, and she is invited to lecture at the Contemporary Music Academy in Berlin. Her song “Fuck The Pain Away” becomes especially well known and gives its name to an electro night in Brighton.