Peaches - I Feel Cream Review

Electro doyenne and sex pest Peaches returns with I Feel Cream, the follow up to 2006's coyly titled Impeach My Bush.

Now 40 and on her fourth studio album, Peaches has long resided over a fringe genre of intelligent feminist strip club music, occasionally attempted by upstarts like Uffie, but never bettered to date.


Perfect timing then for this latest offering, as a new breed of interlopers such as La Roux and Little Boots are jostling for electro pole position.

Amidst the sea of '80s throwbacks, I Feel Cream sounds positively progressive. Relax borrows from the menacing sparsity of dubstep while Talk To Me is a synth-laden glam rock song which Lady GaGa would want to make if she'd listened to less Madonna and more Joan Jett....full text Peaches teams up with a few producers for her fifth album, including electro-house heavyweights Soulwax, Simian Mobile Disco and Digitalism. As you might guess from that list, the punk rock side of her persona has been tempered somewhat, but have no fear – she’s as dirty, fierce and raw as before, at least on a lyrical level....full text Vulgarity has always had a place in popular music, but usually not as special a place as it does for Peaches. “I Feel Cream” (XL), this electroclash heroine’s new album, features the usual cornucopia of carnal boasts and hard-strobing beats, flagrantly deployed. “Never go to bed without a piece of raw meat,” she raps on “Trick or Treat,” which leaves only a speck to the imagination. Elsewhere she dispenses with the speck. Yet there are layers to this album, which was self-produced with help from Simian Mobile Disco and Gonzales, among others. Ever the self-conscious transgressor, Peaches presents herself as both exceptional and mutable. “I blur the lines, and then I combine,” she declares on “Take You On,” invoking gender as well as genre. She employs riches as a metaphor for sexual supremacy on “Billionaire,” which features a guest rap by Shunda K of Yo! Majesty. More surprisingly, a few other tracks feature Peaches as an earnest singer. On the techno-leaning title track, she coos a refrain that begins with this assertion: “I know the role I could play.” (Peaches appears at Webster Hall on May 16.)...full text