and Fawkes had returned to Sacramento, Malkmus visited and the group decided to turn the Pa songs into a Pavement project. Malkmus wrote lyrics to "Forklift" and presented the band with "two or three other songs" he had previously written. Recording Demolition Plot J-7 was, like Slay Tracks and the Pa demos, recorded by Gary Young at his Louder Than You Think studios in Stockton. The recording took place on October 16 and October 17, 1989. Malkmus was influenced by the rehearsal style of jazz musicians as significant to the EP's recording, saying "When we start recording, we're really focused on what we're doing. We know how it's going to sound in the studio. We don't have to worry if it's sounding good in the rehearsal space. We take those prescriptions from the great jazz people and applied them to our own framework." The addition of Turner to the band created tension with Young. Young had served as the primary drummer on Slay Tracks, with Malkmus and Kannberg drumming on a few songs. Young did not play any drums for the Demolition Plot J-7 sessions, and expressed jealousy towards Turner, openly mocking the new drummer. However, Turner ultimately only played drums on the EP's opening track "Forklift", and Malkmus and Kannberg performed the rest of the songs. Composition and lyrics Stephen Thomas Erlewine and Heather Phares wrote in Allmusic's biography of Pavement that, with Demolition Plot J-7, Pavement "had begun to forge [their] influences into its own signature sound." A review in the Baltimore City Paper likened the EP's sound to "a cross between The Fall (circa Frenz Experiment) and Half Japanese". A review in LA Weekly stated that "The guitar on 'Internal K-Dart' and 'Fork Lift' is patently similar to Big Black and Dinosaur Jr., but Pavement steer clear of the former's pretentiously bleak posturing and the latter's dreary self-pity". Malkmus noted the influence that jazz musicians had on the EP's recording, and acknowledged jazz albums Interstellar Space by John Coltrane and Andrew!!! by Andrew Hill as two of his favorite records. The EP is Pavement's first to incorporate keyboards. The first song on the album, "Forklift", features fuzzy guitar effects, like much of the band's early material. "Forklift" also incorporates what Pavement biographer Rob Jovanovic calls "almost Kraftwerk-sounding" overdubbed electronic keyboard sounds in the chorus. "Spizzle Trunk" is a punk-influenced track with "thrashy guitars", but it also includes