Girl Talk Releases New Album For Free

It’s been two full years since we interviewed Girl Talk following the release of his last record, Feed The Animals. Today, Greg Gillis surprised fans with the free download release of his new and highly anticipated follow-up, All Day. Gillis tours around 300 dates per year, so offering the new album as a free download is probably not hurting the pockets of his newfound success.

I haven’t yet located the Beyonce/Led Zeppelin mash-up he was working on during our call, but there’s already a Wikipedia page up documenting all the sampled artists. You can download Girl Talk’s All Day here at his Illegal Art’s label page. The page is running VERY slow today since he’s currently number one on Google Trends. The early highlights include the Phoenix/Ludacris mix on “Triple Double,” the Radiohead/Isley Brothers/Birdman mix on “Make Me Wanna,” and the Lady Gaga/Aphex Twin/Soulja Boy mix on “Get It Get It.”

Girl Talk – All Day by user5904919

Tobacco @ First Unitarian Church

While waiting outside the First Unitarian Church in Philadelphia, the crowd of anxious fans slowly started to multiply. For some odd reason that I will never understand, the church decided it was going to host a play upstairs during the show. This subjected the waiting crowd to an extra hour and a half after doors were supposed to open, which made no real difference to the flock of anticipating fans. The doors finally opened, and we found our way to the basement; this basement, mind you, is the hottest place in Philly to see a show these days. The numerous fans were no help to the sweaty masses, as they just pushed the hot air back down on us. We made our way past the merch table and headed for front and center. The crowd slowly grew larger and more compact.

The two members of Dreamend enter the stage; one sits at the drums and the other (Ryan Graveface from Black Moth Super Rainbow) picks up his guitar, flicks on the amp and slams the audience with over-driven distortion and delay. As the band immediately garners audience attention, they have a projector shooting images and video clips on a sheet behind them. The projection was actually used throughout the entire show. For Dreamend, images and cartoons of the sun communicated the passage of time. While the band’s opening track left an imprint, I was not as impressed by the follow-up, especially the vocals. The rest of Dreamend’s setlist was good, but not great. It mainly consisted of textured or effected guitar and very distinguished and momentous drum beats.

After the first band, Junk Culture followed. Junk Culture is signed to Illegal Art and has opened for Girl Talk in the past. This is someone I would really enjoy seeing again. They livened up the audience and had everyone moving. The use of the sampler was amazing, as it warped and delayed the vocal delivery perfectly. Their video projection was more to the vibe of their music and was really engaging. There were a lot of geometric shapes, lines, colors, and time lapses, which fit the mood of their songs well. The frontman of Junk Culture heard the rant of the crowd screaming FOURLOKO and started a song to the beat of their chant. He then jumped into the audience and danced with the crowd. I thought their final track was their strongest and was amped to discover a great new band.

Finally, out came The Seven Fields of Aphelion (from Black Moth Super Rainbow) and Tobacco (if you haven’t noticed the trend, also from BMSR). They just slam right into it, and the entire crowd goes wild. I never thought I would see a pit open up for Tobacco, but it did. This pit then morphed into a mob of people dancing until finally, a sea of fans was moving to the music. Unfortunately, this took the crowds attention away from the video montage. The use of pornographic images and 80′s aerobics was just genius. It opened with a foursome including one girl and three pterodactyls and ended with E.T. porn. The only thing that came to my mind was, “What the fuck?” If the song made you feel a slight paranoia, the video followed up that mood. Everything about the performance was superb. The use of the talk box and guitar instead of the usual vocoder was a highlight. The Seven Fields of Aphelion (Maux Boyle) held her own on keyboards and synth. She has also recently released a solo album on Graveface Records called Periphery. If you like Tobacca, you will dig her stuff.

Toward the end of the set, Dreamend came out to accompany Tobacco and The Seven Fields of Aphelion; it was basically a BMSR reunion. The great thing about Tobacco’s solo music as opposed to BMSR is that it has a much deeper and darker feel to it. With BMSR everything was a lot more like pop or hip-hop. Tobacco performing his songs with a full band was a real treat. This was a show I will never forget. Amazing, just amazing.

Girl Talk: Who Let the Animals Out?

Girl Talk is breaking all the rules with his latest full-length album. There is not one original beat, note, or lyric on the mash-up star’s fourth LP, and lawyers are standing by. This time around Greg Gillis (aka Girl Talk) asked his record label, appropriately named Illegal Art, what the boundaries were this time around. The label came back and demanded that he make the record he wants to make. Any issues that arise will be dealt with later. Gillis did just that, as the number of samples used in each of his songs have reached an all-time high. One track even mashes an impressive 35 songs in less than four minutes.

Feed the Animals features 14 obnoxious tracks that defy genre and push the limits of art. Gillis is the most talented artist who does what he does. These songs aren’t exactly mash-ups in the original sense. They are musical and lyrical collages of popular culture. Although there is not one original note, each song sounds fresh and new, as if you never heard it before. Gillis has a real gift for choosing which songs to mix/overlap/mash. His creations have gotten more complex and dense. I recall hearing elements of up to five songs all at once. The beauty of the track was that all of the songs were completely discernible.

Feed the Animals features several standout mash ups. Highlights of the album include Jay-Z rapping ‘Roc Boys’ over the dense guitars of Radiohead’s ‘Paranoid Android’, Kelly Clarkson singing ‘Since You Were Gone’ over Nine Inch Nail’s Grammy-winning track ‘Wish,’ and Ton Loc spitting out ‘Wild Thing’ to the melody of Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Gypsy.’ The funny thing about the latter is that ‘Wild Thing’ is a sampled song in itself, creating a paradoxical wormhole of a mash-up that defies all convention.

The album is not perfect and will lag at times during songs you are not necessarily a fan of. That does not prevent admiration of the skill that goes into the process. The album immediately revealed something very obvious to me upon first listen: the quality of hip hop music is at an all-time low. You could even say the same about pop. No wonder Gillis does what he does. Some of the songs cannot stand up on their own. Mixing the best elements of each song with the lyrics and beats of others actually improves the quality. You have to hear it to believe it.

Greg Gillis is breaking rules with Feed the Animals. Maybe the album’s title is a reference to this, referring to feeding the animals although the sign at the zoo forbids it. If that’s the case, Gillis is not just feeding the animals, he is letting them out of their cages to roam free. An incredible fan video cutting up the videos from each song referenced in the track, ‘Shut Down the Club, can be seen here:

The entire album is currently being streamed on Girl Talk’s MySpace page.

Girl Talk “Does a Radiohead”

Gregg Gillis, better known as Girl Talk, decided to drop his latest record, Feed The Animals, (ala Radiohead/Trent/Saul) as a “pay what you can” download. The Pittsburgh native is the master of mash up and has been dropping hits since his 3rd release “Night Ripper” dropped in 2006 on the Illigal Art label.

Regardless of what you pay, you get a zip file of the entire record as 320kb mp3s. If you pay five bucks or more, you can download uncompressed FLAC files. $10 gets you the files and a copy of the CD when it comes out in September. If you choose to pay zero dollars, you are prompted to choose a reason. Here are the options from the website:

– I may donate later
– I can’t afford to pay
– I don’t really like Girl Talk
– I don’t believe in paying for music
– I have already purchased this album
– I don’t value music made from sampling
– I am part of the press, radio, or music industry
– Other reasons

Well worth the price!

Steal it here.