The Ephemeric

Genre Mash-up
Label Illegal Art
Producer Gregg Gillis
Release Date Out Now



The biggest name in the mash-up scene, Girl Talk, is back with a new album. All Day runs 12 tracks long and 373 samples mixed together into the kind of work that only Gillis can craft.

Fans of Girl Talk's manic style will not be disappointed. This is great party music, superbly mixed, and in many cases combines elements of known songs into something that's greater than the sum of its parts. But for those still yet to jump on the bandwagon, there is little here to suggest that Girl Talk is evolving.

In many ways it's a disappointment after Feed the Animals which was itself such a singular achievement and a whole new level for the mash up king. Feed the Animals was the first album which successfully managed to create a mature and smooth flow of music, really to even describe it as a mash-up did it a disservice. With All Day Girl Talk has regressed to the less subtle stylings of Night Ripper and earlier works. Those who thought that Girl Talk was starting to really bring the artform into adulthood will no doubt be disappointed.

The work here sounds less like a surgeon's careful dissection of pop music and more like Dr. Frankenstein with a hatchet, and often it will be the case that a track merely consists of two songs playing on top of one another unedited, almost lazily. At the same time, the music somehow manages to feel almost subdued for much of the album, rarely hitting the euphoric peaks of some of the songs from Feed the Animals, and little that will live long in the memory.

I must stress that this is by no means a bad album, it's just not the transformative redefinition of the genre that Feed the Animals hinted at, and it probably won't win over many new fans.