Soundboy Punishments

In the early days of dubstep’s breakout from its nano-scene beginnings, one label was vital to its crossover but also one step removed from the scene. Lancastrian Sam Shackleton and Bristolian Laurie “Appleblim” Osborne added a psychedelic menace to its already dark moods and, especially on Shackleton’s early, Middle Eastern-influenced tunes, took its minimalism to preposterous extremes. Their Skull Disco label (the pun only makes sense if you say it in Shackleton’s Northern English accent) lasted a mere three years from 2005–8, but its output was stupendous — enough to fill two hefty compilations. This, the first, captures them at their rawest, weirdest, and played loud enough still feels like music for a party right on the very edge of the world. It also works phenomenally well as an album despite its more than two-hour length, with Ricardo Villalobos’s terrifyingly warped 18 minute minimal techno remix of Shackleton’s “Blood on my Hands” perfectly placed near the end as a black hole that completely obliterates all notions of time.