Dave Dub’s The Treatment is hip-hop at its bare bones. It’s the philosophical twin of wrecked stoner-rock bands like Sleep, a group Dave frequently shared unlikely billing with, in the early 1990s hometown of San Jose CA. That’s how bad his psychedelic hell-ride weirded out the rest of the “San Hopeless” rap community (also the original home of Stones Throw itself). Later, he’d ooze into opening slots for black metal and punk bands, even joining a punk band shortly before recording The Treatment.

Despite plenty of communication with the proto-Stones Throw crew Charizma and Peanut Butter Wolf, there was never any official deal, and Dub confined his particular brand of madness to cassette tape only.

From ’92 on, he says he abandoned even caring about commercial rap and detached himself from the genre. In ’99, he abandoned the U.S.A. and split to Jamaica to ride out Y2K. He came back illegally and secretly, reuniting after almost a decade with his original collaborator and current producer Tape Mastah Steph.

Steph convinced him to go back not just to the roots but down to the actual dirt itself and record an album with nothing but what they used back in the day - an SP-1200 and a vintage Ensoniq EPS. The result was The Treatment, Dub’s full-length Stones Throw debut—a horror film as refracted through the mind of a man who’s seen it all and knows too much.