Everything about lubricants and menopause

This is a review. The author is responsible for the opinions in the text.

“I’m a horny little fucker and I’ll put you in a squeeze,” sings 59-year-old Peaches on the second track, “Fuck Your Face,” subverting most ideas about women aging. A lot has happened since Canadian music teacher Merrill Nisker moved from Toronto to Berlin and made his breakthrough with the album “The Teaches of Peaches” – even then, at 33, old in a sexist music industry. As a queer feminist icon, she has remained an underground phenomenon while being appreciated in a larger context.

Two documentaries were released this year. In “Teaches of Peaches,” which follows the lead-up to the debut album’s anniversary tour, Nisker talks about how today’s mainstream culture has actually become more like her—think openly queer pop stars like Billie Eilish and Chappell Roan—but also about an impending backlash. Since the documentary was made, the world has become even more polarized as Trump and the MAGA Right score one victory after another in the US. For an artist like Peaches, the knee-jerk reaction seems to be to mobilize.

The early 2000s The ephemeral electroclash trend was a permissive venue for female creativity and fluid gender identity long before there was an accepted vocabulary. Peaches quickly became a prominent figure alongside names like Chicks on Speed, Le Tigre and Miss Kittin. But with the signature song “Fuck the Pain Away,” she was always braver than most. When I interviewed Peaches about 20 years ago in connection with her second album, Fatherfucker, she appeared in underwear with a cloth penis attached and sounded like a psychologist as she presented the theory that we all suffer from hermaphrodite envy.

Against this background, the new album “No lube so rude” appears as a menopause version of “The Teaches of Peaches” – in a positive sense. Just like the debut album, the mature Nisker’s teachings are based on sex-positive activism, with lines like “My hanging titties hit like the punch” clearly speaking in an age of ageism. The title track, in turn, is a hymn to “lube” – lubricant – with sophisticated trumpet, trombone and saxophone. If you believe Peaches, it’s not just dry mucous membranes that need better lubrication, but also friction in society.

The personal is more political than ever and the lyrics are explicitly about defending abortion and trans rights. Between several variations on the theme “Fuck,” there are references to both Roe v. Wade as well as Starlink, Technocrats and Nepobabies are recognizable. Menopausal flashes in the pelvic floor and erections have never been as violent as in “Fuck how you wanna fuck”. Eleven years after the last album “Rub” we can speak of both a record comeback and a resurgence.

The sound splits the raw energy of the debut album. The gender words echo across uncompromising electro beats and rock riffs, but the influences have become more numerous. In “Panna Cotta Delight” a smooth soul stick breaks off, while in “Grip” crackling industrial metal meets dramatic brass. The song “Not in your Mouth None of Your Business”, on the other hand, is as close as possible to the agitational heyday of Electroclash and his friends Chicks on Speed.

Musically speaking, Peaches is at her most interesting when she expresses emotion and vulnerability beyond the catchphrases. “Take it” and “Be love” in particular show a more melodic and melancholic side. The latter also fills the gap left by The Knife, albeit with an epically sad string finale. If it’s not actually Olof Dreijer who hides behind the secret co-producer The Squirt Deluxe, then at least it’s someone with similar studio equipment as the Swedish sibling duo, whose queer identity is, so to speak, shaken out of Peaches’ hot pants and not out of a coat.

Performance has always been an important part of Peaches’ artistic expression, as has humor. On his sixth album “No lube so rude” the Amazon of electropunk sounds more inspired, fresh and uplifting than it has for a long time. As if, thanks to the performing arts and spectacular live shows of the last decade, she had gathered the strength for another rallying cry with more life experience.

Best track: “Whatcha gonna do about it”, “Be love”

Read more CD reviews and other texts by Johanna Paulsson.