London, UK · breakbeat · bass-house

Stanton Warriors

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UK breakbeat mainstays who predate most of the room — two decades of bass-heavy sets built on breaks rather than four-to-the-floor.

Stanton Warriors are the British production and DJ duo of Dominic Butler and Mark Yardley, originally from the West Country, who came up through the late-1990s breaks scene and became one of the defining acts of UK nu skool breaks. Their name comes from a manhole cover stamped by Stanton Ironworks, a company also known for record-player needles favoured by DJs for scratching.

They first drew attention through bootleg remixes that ran garage, hip-hop and house vocals over swung breakbeats, and carried that approach into their own productions and the Stanton Sessions mix series. The third volume, released in 2008 with a limited edition packaged in a miniature manhole-cover tin, became their best-selling release and drew a top rating from iDJ magazine.

Their sets stay rooted in broken rhythms rather than straight four-to-the-floor patterns, drawing on breakbeat, bassline, garage and house, with heavy low end and a lot of vocal cut-ups. Now based in West London, the pair run their own label, Punks, out of their studio.

Much of their release artwork and merchandise carries graffiti-style designs by artists SheOne and Rough, the latter winning a design award for his work on the single "Da Antidote." They have remained active as remixers and DJs across two decades, known as much for their club mixing as for their studio records.

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