Simon Dunmore announces that he will take some time off of Djing to devote himself to his family.
Through his social networks Simon Dunmore has thanked the music world for the gift that it has given him in his life and that he never imagined.
A hugely successful, multi-label owner, journalist, collector, DJ and produce.... Simon would never have imagined that the man who shared music on cassette tapes 35 years ago would go so far.
"I will never stop promoting music and culture, my plan is to play at a few select events over the next 12 months to thank the house music community."
It's time, he says, to take more care of my own family and help my children direct their own careers, which due to my commitments I neglected to attend to.
"I owe a huge debt of time to my family."
As co-founder and A&R director of Defected, arguably the UK's leading dance music label, Simon Dunmore is a highly influential industry figure who remains a DJ at heart and whose professional experience long predates the founding of his label.
A long-time record collector, Dunmore began DJing in 1982 as a soul music DJ, with a particular love of the Salsoul, Philadelphia International and Motown labels.
During the 1980s he worked in one of London's leading record shops, Soul & Disco Centre on Rayners Lane, and also worked as a journalist, writing for Blues & Soul magazine and later founding his own fanzine, The London Soul Circular.
He went to Ibiza as early as 1985, before the rise of acid house and the commercialisation of the island. In 1989 Dunmore began working in the A&R field, initially for Cooltempo, a subsidiary of London-based Chrysalis. While at Cooltempo he signed hits such as Arrested Development's "Everyday People" and Kenny Thomas' "Thinking About Your Love" - not to mention dance classics like River Ocean's "Love and Happiness (Yemaya and Ochun)", a Masters at Work production with the India star - and also remixed several singles for the label.
In 1995 Dunmore moved to AM:PM, a dance music subsidiary of A&M, and while working there signed more hits, for example Ultra Naté's "Free", Mousse T's "Horny" and Roger Sanchez's "Another Chance".
Towards the end of the decade, Dunmore and his colleague Janet Bell decided to "defect" from AM:PM after learning that Universal Music Group, following its acquisition of A&M, planned to cut its division. Hence the founding of Defected in 1999.
From the moment of their inaugural release, Soul Searcher's "Can't Get Enough", a Top 10 hit, Defected enjoyed an incredible run of success.
In addition to his A&R work over the years, Dunmore continued to play records regularly, DJing at various clubs. He has a long list of albums to his credit, many of them in the popular Defected in the House series.
For many years in a row, from 2004 onwards, he managed the Eivissa volumes of the series.
I never imagined that this would lead to a 35-year career playing records".
Thanks for all these years of good music !!
