Peaches
I Feel Cream

Electronics are probably the common factor that manages to bring everyone together in the marvelous and vast sonic melting pot, and especially in the purely pop field, there is no artist or pseudo-artist who hasn't made extensive use of it. On the contrary, in recent years, the trend of recruiting DJs and producers in the field has been on a constant rise, a trend that on one hand has produced small gems and/or authentic masterpieces, while on the other has replicated a series of plastic clones eager to plague the world's most trashy clubs.

However, electronics and its many derivatives took their first small steps in the underground world before being violently swallowed by mainstream voracity, and even today, the leap (not always of quality) from the depths of the unknown to the profitable arenas of international charts is not always guaranteed or desired. Thanks to the "alternative" aspirations of the individual artist or band who are not inclined to top positions, the sounds not easily digestible by the mass of catchy and immediate trivialities, or nine-figure contracts that are slow to pass under the Mont Blanc pens of those interested, the myth of genuine underground creativity continues to shine serenely and joyfully, although not irradiated by the spasmodic luminescence of MTV. And so the "desire to experiment" becomes increasingly less hidden and more manifest, aiming to explore sonic realms still untouched by palms and unheard by human earlobes and to mix with genius bizarreness everything that is music, sound, and vibration.

As mentioned, the aversion to charts and the poppish in general. The example I present here goes by the name of Merrill Beth Nisker, aka Peaches. Born in '66, Peaches debuted under her birth name in 1995 with Fancypants Hoodlum, then launching the era of her current pseudonym with the hyper-underground The Teaches Of Peaches and Fatherfucker, albums where a curious aesthetic androgyny goes hand in hand with a complex and daring mix of electroclash, grime, hip-hop, and synth-punk pushed to the extreme. The last analyzed work, I Feel Cream, dates to 2009 and shows a somewhat less "alternative" pace, yet more enjoyable and assimilable for those who can't completely abandon the vast dance-pop deserts. From the pristine electro-underground territory, Peaches winks at the (non-standardized) Europop, glam-glitch electropop, and synth revival alongside the evergreen new-wave, without completely forgetting the punk-electroclash and trance-grime origins heralded in previous works like The Teaches Of Peaches, Fatherfucker, and Impeach My Bush.

In this delightful box of heterogeneity and diversification, there is only the embarrassment of choice: alongside the dark synths - culminating in a techno-house "catharsis" - of Mud, the pumped and syncopated grime of Billionaire we find the hotly rapped electroclash in Mommy Complex, the minimal and wildly "spit out" synths of Serpentine, the funky-dubstep improvisations in Trick Or Treat, and the succulent techno-disco revival of More. Mention, finally, for the raw and dark grime/hip-hop of Take You On and the ambient-trance symphony for Relax.

A bridge between underground and mainstream, a genuine keystone between the easily accessible and the greater complexity of the alternative: this is how I Feel Cream presents itself to the fierce listener, convinced of providing them with a non-standardized product as a bland mash, a musical package made precisely to discover the other facets of a genre that is all too overused and inflated.

Peaches, I Feel Cream

Serpentine - Talk To Me - Lose You - More - Billionaire - I Feel Cream - Trick Or Treat - Show Stopper - Mommy Complex - Mud - Relax - Take You On