Trevor Taylor (2)

British electroacoustic improviser, drummer and percussionist from Essex (b. 1947). Trevor Taylor is best known as the founder of FMR Records (2), which produced over 500 CD albums of innovative jazz and free improv experimental music. Between May 1980 and August 1992, he owned "Future Music," a chain of seven high-end music retail stores in London, Chelmsford, Brighton, Portsmouth, Chelsea, Torquay and Southampton. Originally a drummer, Taylor studied with Alan Jackson and several other prominent jazz musicians. He grew more interested in percussion and electronic music in the early 1970s after discovering Pierre Boulez, Elliott Carter and Karlheinz Stockhausen. Trevor attended The Guildhall School Of Music & Drama in London and further learned percussion with Gilbert Webster. Over the years, Trevor Taylor performed with dozens of bands and ensembles, including Barry Anderson's West Square Music Workshop, and has been active as a concert promoter. In the mid-1970s, Trevor Taylor first met Ikutaro "Taro" Kakehashi, founder of Roland Corporation, who frequently traveled to the UK before starting his iconic brand. After opening the Future Music stores, Taylor began distributing Roland instruments in Britain. He operated a 24-track recording studio above the Chelmsford shop, equipped with Roland CPE-800 Compumix, the world's first mixing console with motorized faders that Taro brought for him from Japan. In 1983, Trevor visited Roland's factory in Hamamatsu and consulted Kakehashi on a new line of electronic drums. During his Japan trips, Taylor saw Isao Tomita's studio with a massive Roland System 700 modular synthesizer setup and met shakuhachi player and Wire contributor Clive Bell. Taylor and Bell appeared on the BBC's TV program "Look East," performing free improv/live electronic music, and briefly played in one of Trevor's bands, Worlds In Collision. Taylor retired and shut down the "Future Music" chain soon after the '90–91 global recession. In Ikutaro Kakehashi's obituary written by Trevor in April 2017 for Wire, he recalled being "disillusioned with the way musicians were investing in technology to cover up their limited music[al] ability." Instead, he focused on music and the FMR label full-time.