Who is Philip Taysom? Why does he have four Fairlights?

The new issue of Sound on Sound contains an amazing interview with a guy called Philip Taysom, who has the most absurd collection of vintage synths - he uses a Synclavier as a midi controller keyboard and has four (four!) Fairlights, every modular synth you've ever heard of, and about six nine PPGs, all in a vast barn with custom-build air conditioning. What the article doesn't explain is who Philip Taysom is, so I did some research. In 2001 he resigned as a director of InTechnology PLC, a data backup company. He sold 9,329,563 shares at 75p each. I guess £7million buys you a lot of stuff, even if the 'stuff' includes a Yamaha CS80 and a DX1. So these days you'll find him on the Analogue Heaven message board talking about pre-production step synthesisers. A Philip Taysom runs AutoClassica, a company specialising in classic cars (and vintage tractors), particularly Porsches, located in Knaresborough, close to Harrogate. It could be a different guy, but somehow it seems to fit the profile. If AutoClassica Philip is our man, he's clearly a very nice man. Thanks for a great article, SoS, and if Philip wants to invite Music Thing to his loft, we'd love to go.

MORE ON PHILIP HERE