When Girl Talk’s game-changing mash-up album Night Ripper started getting around in 2006, those with longer memories who’d been following new developments in recontextualized pop generally had one of two responses: 1) “This reminds me of 2manydjs”; or 2) “This reminds me of Jason Forrest.” The latter had been making music on the fringes of electronic music for a few years by that point, mostly as DJ Donna Summer (the remix of Guns ‘N Roses’ “Sweet Child O’ Mine” Forrest did under that name is a personal favorite), but it wasn’t until his 2004 album The Unrelenting Sound of the Post-Disco Crash that Forrest fully established himself as a sample-crazed provocateur.
That the album came out on the German imprint Sonig, which was typically a home for headier and more abstract electronic music, was significant: Though Forrest’s primary creative tool was the sampler, and though he freely incorporated bits of ubiquitous pop from the likes of the Cars and the Beatles, his overall approach was ultra-bent and frenetic, never allowing you to get too comfortable or settle into appreciation of any single element. His was a more experimental take on the mash-up, gleefully skirting the edge of annoyance but then pulling out a hugely satisfying moment when you least expected it where everything came together perfectly. He was sort of the laptop Andy Kauffman, in other words, selective about giving you exactly what you wanted but with the computer skills and ears to do so when he was inclined.
Ten years after its initial release, Forrest has temporarily put the album on Bandcamp as a pay-what-you-want download, and it’s definitely worth scooping up. Though there’s plenty to enjoy all the way through, Forrest saves the best for last: the closing “10 Amazing Years”, which mixes riffs by Van Halen and the Who with chopped-up samples of Ringo’s only drum solo from Abbey Road, is cathartic in the extreme.