July 4, 2001

Stanton Warriors : The Stanton Sessions

London duo's two-step/breaks mash-up

8 / 10 Is that the Stanton just beyond Compton? Or Stanton, east of Brooklyn where the graffiti memorials remain pristine 'cos no-one dares step on 'em? Neither. It's Stanton the fabricated neighbourhood of UK Free Beat fusion as imagined by two former dance insiders, who borrowed their name from drain covers.

Dominic B and Mark Yardley may not be exactly the tooled up B-boy Ninjas their name implies - Dom was a garage A&R man, Mark a studio engineer - but their way with a sound system-pulverising mash-up is sufficiently convincing to have won them a heavy reputation.

They've been lazily tagged 'the new Basement Jaxx', not least because it was their remix of the latter's 'Jump N' Shout' that brought them to the attention of non-dance sewer residents.

What this mix set reveals, however, is something more like Aphrodite & Mickey Finn in a multiple turntable battle with Joey Beltram, the Dreem Teem and Eric B & Rakim.

Where most mix albums promising a journey by DJ leave you gridlocked at the same roundabout, Dom'n'Mark take you into a sweatbox genre maze blitzed by insane hybrids of two-step, hip-hop and house. A brilliant docu-rap depicting weed'n'PlayStation geezer life follows the Warriors' own deviant version of 'Jump N' Shout'; police sirens and minimal cyber beats from Plump DJs cut across junglecore; the Warriors' ragga-tech nutter mix of Azzido Da Bass' 'Doom's Night' looms scarily until the robot loops of the pair's own 'Da Virus' shunts in.

It's tempting to say the reason Missy Elliott, Macy Gray, the Jaxx and Fatboy have sought out remixes is simply that Dom and Mark sound like they're having awesome fun. But that wouldn't do them justice. This sounds like broadminded people who've done their homework and honed their skillz, having awesome fun.

Relocate to Stanton, even if it's only for the weekend.

Roger Morton

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