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Girl Talk tames 'Animals' on summer outing

DJ and mash-up artist Girl Talk has set up a summer headlining trek behind his latest effort, "Feed the Animals," which he recently released as a name-your-price download.

The producer and laptop whiz, whose real name is Gregg Gillis, will work a number of US and Canadian shows around several European festival appearances, as well as an Aug. 1 slot at Chicago's Lollapalooza. The outing kicked off June 26 in Hattiesburg, MS, and will hit a total of 10 cities through early August.

North American dates are shown below; Gillis's European commitments can be found at his MySpace page.

"Feed the Animals," the DJ's fourth studio set, was released last month by underground sampling label Illegal Art. The label used a digital release scheme similar to the one Radiohead employed for the initial online distribution last year of "In Rainbows." Fans download the album via its official website and can choose to pay any amount--including nothing.

"Anyone can download an album for free through file-sharing networks as soon as it's released on the Internet," Gillis recently told San Francisco culture journal Metrowize.com. "I just wanted to acknowledge reality. When Radiohead went with this model, it legitimized it as a way to release music. I think it makes it easier for people to get their hands on the music, which is my number one priority."

Users choosing to pay nothing for the set are asked to explain their reasoning, selecting from a variety of answers ranging from "I may donate later" to "I don't believe in paying for music" and "I don't like Girl Talk," among other responses. Fans who pay $5 are given access to lossless FLAC files of the album's cuts, and $10 buys a physical copy of the disc following its Sept. 23 release in addition to the digital version of the album.

The set follows Gillis's 2006 effort, "Night Ripper," which, like the DJ's current release, consists mostly of snippets of sample material from other artists, along with some original instrumentation.