Review in Retrospect: Feed the Animals

Looking at the Fourth Highly Danceable LP by Mashup Master Girl Talk

Jan 8, 2009

Feed the Animals is Gregg Gillis (AKA Girl Talk) at his best and worst. While his mashups may not be entirely perfect, the album broadens his horizons and sounds cleaner.

Fans of Girl Talk will have undoubtedly noticed some changes in the artist's lineup since his 2002 debut Secret Dairy. After six years of perfecting his technique, Gregg Gillis, lone member of the laptop-based mashup band Girl Talk, finally has a record in which a perfected style is presented throughout. His albums, even the previous release Night Ripper, have always had a few moments where voices were distorted or one sample didn't match another.

This problem is virtually nonexistent on his 2008 release, Feed the Animals. Gillis takes advantage of clean mixing techniques and a larger sampling pool in order to create an absurdly infectious hour-long mix. The mashups might not be as overwhelmingly brilliant as in his earlier albums, but they still hold solid and are greatly accentuated by the natural flow of the album.

Girl Talk Creates Natural, Wide-Ranging Album

The first thing a listener will notice when listening to Feed the Animals is how natural it feels. Gillis has cleaned up his style a great deal since Night Ripper; there are no awkward distortion or pacing issues and the album is so thoroughly mixed that it even sounds continuous on shuffle. Lots of cleanup work has been done on Feed the Animals, and the result sounds polished, but not over-produced.

Another big difference between the new Girl Talk album and his older ones is the variety of music which it samples. While Gillis has always been the eclectic sampler (Night Ripper featured a particularly famous combination of Biggie and Elton John), he clearly broadens his horizons on Feed the Animals. While there are have the standard mainstream raps and beats, Gillis pairs these with artists such as Tom Petty, Of Montreal, Faith No More, and even Metallica (the latter having a hilarious mashup with Lil Mama's “Lip Gloss”).

Whether it's a casual listen or a session of trying to identify as many samples as possible, Feed the Animals will provide listeners with a vast amount of possibilities. And if the concept of a mash-up artist isn't enough to cause intrigue for this album, it has a steady, danceable flow which most original DJs envy. The work might not entirely be the most incredible sampling Gillis has done, but it certainly comes close and the sonically clean nature of the album supports it.

9.25/10- On Feed the Animals, Greg Gillis uses a powerful combination of experience, variety, and resources to fine-tune Girl Talk's sound, and he has certainly hit home. The end result is catchy, natural, and by far the most polished of all Gillis' gems. It definitely has a place on the “Best of 2008” lists.

Feed the Animals was released by Girl Talk on Illegal Art and is available digitally for free from there or Gillis' Myspace.

The copyright of the article Review in Retrospect: Feed the Animals in Dance/Techno Music is owned by James Blake. Permission to republish Review in Retrospect: Feed the Animals in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.