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Stakka Biographical Interview
Words: Bronwyn Murray.

Shaun Morris, aka Stakka, has led his own digital revolution in music from a young age. As a teenager in Brighton, England in the 80’s, he took notice of the epic compositions of Jean-Michel Jarre. The futuristic sounds of the synthesizer and the catchy riffs relentlessly mutating
into the next would find their way into Stakka’s insistent and unearthly sound. It was during this time that Shaun and Keir Tyrer, aka K. Tee, first set the groundwork for future collaborations.

Using a collective group name with some friends, the boys traded games and program demos for the C64 home computer with people worldwide. Thanks to the SID chip, the game sound-tracks coming out of the C64 set a precedent for computer music capabilities. Composers like Rob Hubbard and Martin Galway influenced Shaun’s start in electronic music and his ability to create running, mind-bending beats.


In 1988, 15-year-old Shaun started DJ’ing. Listening to the likes of Just-Ice, Public Enemy, the Beastie Boys, KRS-One, Scott La Rock, and Eric B & Rakim, he bought a crate of hip-hop records, one technics turntable, and one imitation model. Meanwhile, the clubs in England
were turning to a new wave of electronic music made possible by the Roland TB-303. The squelchy sounds of the synthesizer and the classic piano stabs and riffs in the music turned Shaun’s ears to a new direction. Dubbed 'Acid house', the whole movement had a completely
different vibe. By mid-1989 he was fully converted to the ultramodern sound and bought up the latest acid house, new beat, and hip house tracks from the Brighton records stores that specialized in underground dance music. Between MI Price, owned by the now infamous Carl Cox, and Jelly Jam, run by current techno guru Luke Slater, he spent every Saturday and endless wages shopping for the latest beats.

In the early 90’s Hardcore took shape and the rave scene in the UK started getting bigger and stronger. On the south coast of England, the legendary In-ter-dance turned Sterns into a massive rave venue. Here Shaun was inspired by DJ’s such as Lenny Dee, Music Maker, Pigbag & Dr. S Gachet, Fabio & Grooverider, Carl Cox, and Frankie Bones. His record-buying habit and weekly adventures at Sterns motivated him to throw parties of his own and put his bedroom DJ skills to the test. So in ’91 he started hiring halls and soundsystems, handing out photocopied flyers, and throwing underground parties where the vibe went off. He partnered up with Mark Wray, aka Spindizzy, to promote and to start producing the music he loved. The two of them joined Mr.E and Pressure as a collective known as F.O.L.S. It was Lo-Fi all the way, working on a basic tracker program on the Amiga computer. Despite the drawbacks,
Shaun financed and released three successful tracks for F.O.L.S.


Around ’92 Shaun started working on music with long time friends Rob Lennon and Keir Tyrer from the computer crew days. Shaun and Rob’s first four tracks came out on the ‘Rhythm and Vibes EP’. Despite enlisting the help of Greatasset distribution, which supplied a large volume
of rave music to England from the early to mid 90’s, this venture was an unfortunate flop. The next year Shaun and Keir started playing around with beats and constructed what was in fact the first Stakka & K.Tee track. This time ‘round, their own quality control prevented it from ever seeing the light of day. While he was getting pickier about his own production, he was bored with the direction of the scene, the records being released, and the cheesy, irritating 4 to the floor bassdrums. Luckily others were thinking the same way, and this reaction ultimately led the scene down a darker path. Hearing DJ’s like Topbuzz and Ratty restored Shaun’s faith in the scene. The new style of rave music, dark and hard but still melodic and more and more breaks oriented, opened up exciting possibilities for Stakka’s next developments.

The following summer was the proper start of the Stakka & K.Tee Recording partnership. Keir had moved to London and was listening to the pirate radio stations as the jungle explosion occurred. Crazier, more complex drum programming took breakbeats to the next level; with the
introduction of reggae and dub elements to the mix, jungle was in full effect. On the weekends Shaun packed up his Akai s950 sampler and took the train up to the city to work on some beats.

‘Ruffneck Ragga’ and ‘The Ladder’ became the first Stakka & K. Tee release, on a south London label called Just Dance Recordings.


The partners spent all summer feeding off of such clubs as the Paradise Club in Islington, the Astoria, and the Hippodrome, channeling that energy into their next two tracks, and shopping them around to innovative labels like Tone Def, Ram Records, and its complement Liftin’ Spirits.

Ant Miles picked up on the demo and invited the promising producers into the studio to mix the tracks down for release on Liftin’ Spirits in ‘94. Stakka and K. Tee were really feeling the releases on Liftin’ Spirits and Ram, so they knew it would be a great opportunity for them. In the studio, Ant completely pulled the tracks apart and transformed what would become ‘Brockin Out’ and ‘Serious Intention’ into something more in sync with Liftin’ Spirits. Working with Ant and later with Andy C during their 3 years with those labels taught Stakka and K. Tee essential arranging and production techniques. They incorporated these techniques into the 9 releases they put out during that time, most notably ‘Rugged & Raw’, ‘Andromeda’, ‘Orange Sunshine’ from the first Ram LP ‘The Speed of Sound’ and the Andy C collaboration ‘Danger Zone’.


By ’96 Shaun was giving pointers of his own, helping Nathan Vinall manoeuvre around his new studio set up. In between the Stakka & K.Tee sessions, Nathan started using their studio and produced a couple of solid tracks under the name NV. The NV tracks never quite made it to
Liftin’ Spirits, and when Shaun and Nathan began working on ‘Black Dawn’ the sound seemed to need a home of its own. Shaun gave up his 9 to 5 office job, Nathan quit day-crew construction, and the two decided to make a go of some labels. Audio Blueprint Recordings rose with ‘Black Dawn’, paving the way for the cinematic and dark sci-fi journey the label intended to provide. Their second label Underfire was meant to counterbalance the sound, steering the dancefloor to a more quirky and funked out place. As Nathan and Shaun explored the boundaries of their imagination, they created a string of pseudonyms to express different styles.

Working undercover as Spy, Psion, Skynet, Kraken, Profound Noize and other names, their true identities were never fully revealed and much hard work has gone uncredited. Skynet eventually re-emerged as Nathan’s solo artist name.


In 1997, with Underfire and Audio Blueprint producing releases, Shaun met Ali Ash, aka Skinny / Nu-Balance, and Ed Keeley, aka Friction. By day, Ali ran his own record shop near Brighton, Ed ran a drum’n’bass magazine called Informer, and Keir was following a career of his own.
Coming together for various collaborations, Skinny, Friction, and K. Tee became an integral part of the Underfire and Audio Blueprint sound. Later came a third and fourth label: Zero G for Underfire-style tracks that were not as hard-hitting and Ultra Violet for more musical and funky tracks. Over the 5 years Stakka & Skynet worked together and ran the four labels, they
released 41 x 12” & EP’s, 5 compilation CD’s, the 3 full length LP’s Voyager’, ‘Blazin’ and ‘Clockwork’ and 16 remixes. They put their own nasty twist on tunes from Africa Bambaataa, Morcheeba, Usual Suspects, Cause 4 Concern, and for labels such as Warner and Creation.

As the Stakka & Skynet sound went international on the dancefloors, demand for their DJ'ing progressively increased in the States. In '01 Stakka & Skynet descended on Seattle, WA. Here they took Underfire, Audio Blueprint, Zero G, and Ultra Violet as far as they could go together.
Although Seattle had its perks, the sleepy town lacked the energy Shaun needed. It was time to lay the labels to rest and go their separate ways. As Nathan returned to Brighton, Shaun took off for New York, ready to embark on a new project.


Now living and operating from his studio in Brooklyn, NY, Shaun launched Cargo Industries at the start of 2003. The label is a mutated hybrid offspring of his style, past recordings, and label affiliations. With this in mind, recruits K. Tee, Friction, and Skinny are currently working with
Stakka under the collective name The Militia.

The studio has come a long way from earlier days, equipped and ready, Cargo will force-feed the evolution of Drum'n'Bass and electronic music.