Photography by Alexander Wagner

Somewhere in the middle of Louisiana, en route to a show in Baton Rouge, Greg Gillis, the 26-year-old mash-up master behind the one-man party band Girl Talk, is listening intently to the local rock radio station — in other words, he’s working. “’These Dreams’ by Heart just came on,” Gillis says. “That song has a great instrumental breakdown — I really think I need to get into that.” The Heart classic would feel right at home among the 500-odd songs Gillis has sampled on his 2006 break-out, Night Ripper and on the recently released follow-up, Feed the Animals. Picking up where mash-up pioneer Danger Mouse left off, Gillis creates complex dance anthems that sound a bit like a Now That’s What I Call Music album on steroids. By frenetically sampling pieces of current top-40 pop and hip-hop with ‘70s, ‘80s, and ‘90s classics (along with some insider hipster fare like the Unicorns and Of Montreal), Gillis re-contextualizes the songs involved, creating beats that are both brand-new and really, really danceable, all the while boldly layering where no sound collagist has gone before. We’re talking about a man who thought to mash-up MIA’s “Boys” with The Cranberries’ “Dreams”.

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