Merrill Beth Nisker (born November 11, 1966), better known as Peaches, is a Canadian-born electronic musician and performance artist currently residing in Berlin.

Born Merrill Beth Nisker in Toronto, Ontario, Peaches attended a private Jewish school where her classes were taught half in English and half in Hebrew. Kids from the nearby Catholic school frequently teased her. Nisker was a class clown, who “wasn’t particularly smart but was interested in creative performance stuff.”

Before she became Peaches, she was an independent music and drama teacher.

She plays her own instruments for her songs, programs her own electronic beats, and produces her own albums. In this interview you can see that her “can-do” attitude to technical areas of her craft has been a part of her success.

Don’t think you are unable to do something because you are not clever or talented enough. You are clever and talented – everybody is!

This is about discovery – that place you never knew existed, a great new band, an underground party or just a great night out. We’ve all experienced it and it’s something that just doesn’t happen often enough. But when it does – wow – it elevates us from our ordinary existence.

This ad is directed by acclaimed promos director Daniel Wolfe and shot at the super-cool Notting Hill Arts Club in West London. The band in the video is The Joy Formidable, a three-piece band from North Wales, currently located in London. Their members are vocalist/guitarist Ritzy Bryan, bassist Rhydian Dafydd and Justin Stahley now on drums.

Now, The Joy Formidable are gearing up for their most extensive UK tour to date. Already high on the list of bands to break through amongst those in the know in the first year of this new decade, The Joy Formidable continue to hold their future firmly in their own hands.

The video is a promo from Kopparberg who make cider apparently.

Phoenix are from Versailles, France, founded by current members Thomas Mars, Deck D’Arcy, Christian Mazzalai and Laurent Brancowitz. The band that are sometimes compared with their friends Air and Daft Punk, are back with yet another awesome album entitled Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix.

Here they talk about their last album and touring, giving a behind-the-scenes look at their creative process.