Ian Simmonds

Ian Simmonds has issued recordings through !K7, the Ntone subsidiary of Ninja Tune, SSR, and ATL, the imprint he founded himself. Previously a member of the pop-house outfit the Sandals, whose early-'90s track "Feet" achieved massive success, Simmonds embarked on a solo path once label difficulties led to the group's dissolution; his ATL moniker, standing for All That's Left, wryly nods to that period. Although his independent output emerged during the wave of acts following in Mo'Wax's wake, Simmonds crafted pieces marked by deliberate intricacy that set them apart from the generic breakbeat textures typical of the cannabis-infused downtempo scene. His initial pair of 12-inch releases, Juryman 1 and Juryman 2 under the Juryman name, came out on ATL, after which he moved to Ntone, Ninja Tune's experimental division, for Juryman 3. Issued in 1997 on SSR, a sublabel of Crammed, his fourth single incorporated fuller drum'n'bass beats. That same year saw the arrival of the Juryman album Mail Order Justice, which he created alongside Luke Gordon, known as Spacer and the resident engineer at Howie B.'s Pussyfoot studio. His next two albums, Last States of Nature and Return to X, both appeared on !K7 under Simmonds' own name.