All Day in Bloomington, MN

Pop enthusiast/mash-up master
Gregg Gillis
fine-tunes his approach for
All Day
, a mix that took over two and a half years to craft. Each outing in
Girl Talk
's discography has followed a steady succession, starting with
Secret Diary
's microscopic, glitch-based work and becoming progressively less fractured with every release. Following suit,
is
Gillis
' straightest work to date. After the success of
Night Ripper
and his masterpiece
Feed the Animals
, steady club touring helped him exercise his lap-top chops, and now -- armed with greater software know-how and a precisely organized hard drive of successfully road-tested MP3s -- his fifth album has fewer moments that feel random or forced. Here,
makes blending gangsta rap and classic pop feel easy. Because
isn't as dense or frenetic as
, it plays a little more like a party album than a game of Name That Tune for music buffs. Still, it is absolutely jam-packed. With 373 samples in 71 minutes, the songs are so cleverly and seamlessly collaged together that things become practically comical:
Ludacris
'
"How Low"
over
Phoenix
's
"1901,"
Crooked I
"Everything"
Neil Diamond
"Cherry Cherry,"
Ice Cube
"It Was a Good Day"
Devo
"Gates of Steel,"
and
Lil Wayne
"A Milli"
Joe Jackson
"Steppin' Out"
are just a smattering of artists featured in the first few minutes of a single track.
is too playful to be considered mature, but for the first time it feels like a consistent album and there are definite signs of
maturing as an artist. Above all, it's a whole lot of fun. ~ Jason Lymangrover