Girl Talk

STILL HERE (mp3) by girl talk
SET IT OFF (mp3) by girl talk
HANDS IN THE AIR (mp3) by girl talk
PLAY YOUR PART, part 2 (mp3) by girl talk

Greg Gillis, known to most as girl talk, is modern pop music's most sonically dexterous jumbler of sounds, loops, hooks and bites and boy, is he at his old tricks again. I speak, of course, of his newest LP "Feed the Animals"- a looser, louder, but not necessarily better collection of mash-ups and club bangers then his 2006 masterwork "Night Ripper". Gillis is still rummaging through pop culture's most plentiful chest of aural pleasures and treasures, and the result is sometimes exhilarating- "Play your part pt. 1" dares to mingle the bass-heavy bumps and slaps of vintage UGK and Outkast beats with the high-voltage, instantly recognizable "We're not gonna take it" pugnaciousness of Dee Snyder/Twisted Sister and the electrifying "No Pause" might be one of Gillis's more polished, sonically refined party jams. The problem, like a great deal of the collective output in the girl talk canon, is a slight lack in individuality and verve- like a great mixtape, "Feed the animals" is best viewed as a one long, rambling, somewhat messy collage of beats per minute micro-managed to within an inch of its life with no pressing emphasis on cohesion or melody. "Don't stop", which manages to bastardize the Cure's "In Between days" whilst reveling in the lowest-common-denominator ring tone rap of Soulja Boy, reveals a hollowness to Gillis's work not evident on the rambunctious machine-gun funk of "Night Ripper" and while the album has its fair share of thrills, it's ultimately one big clusterfuck of noise.

-by Nicholas Laskin

Click FEED THE ANIMALS to download Girl Talk's new entire length