A Song For Friday: Beverly Glenn-Copland
An act of pure love from the Canadian enigma and his partner. Also: Ulrika Spacek, Chimers, Asher White, John Craigie, Vegas Water Taxi, Danz CM, Mandy, Indiana, and Carlos Niño & Friends.
Like many others, I was introduced to the masterful, enigmatic singer and composer Beverly Glenn-Copland in 2018, when his 1970 debut album was reissued. Noting that it “is a must for anyone who loves Tim Buckley, Vashti Bunyan, or anyone who strums an acoustic guitar but doesn't play by the rules,” I also lavished love on his voice and the magnificent control he exercised over it. Glenn-Copland is also a pioneer of electronic/new-age music, releasing Keyboard Fantasies in 1986 and Primal Prayer in 2004, both of which were reissued in recent years.
In 2020, we got Transmissions, a fantastic career-spanning compilation that included some incredible live tracks, also the focus of another album. I was so all-in on Glenn-Copland’s work that you could have knocked me over with a feather when I realized that his 2023 album, The Ones Ahead, wasn’t working for me. It felt positively uncharitable that, after repeated plays, I just couldn’t meet him where he was. But as listeners, we must ultimately serve ourselves, with our only obligation to listen and give things a chance. I had done that with The Ones Ahead and had to move on.
As a Black trans man, Glenn-Copland has had his share of struggles, including a bout of homelessness in 2020. Now 82, he was recently diagnosed with a form of dementia that is gradually reducing his executive function and erasing his memories. He’s very fortunate to have Elizabeth Glenn-Copland, his partner since 2007, walking this terrifying path together. Today, they released Laughter In Summer (Transgressive), a mellow, dimensional tapestry of an album that is everything I wanted from The Ones Ahead. I’m still a selfish listener, but that doesn’t mean I ever gave up!
That the album is an act of pure love is evident from the first song, Let Us Dance (Movement One), with Alex Samaras’ effulgent piano and Naomi McCarroll-Butler’s clarinet supporting Glenn-Copland’s glorious singing, which is accompanied by a nine-voice choir for a sigh-inducing combination. Four songs are cowritten with and sung as duets with Elizabeth, and their voices intertwine to sublime effect.
But the song I want to focus on is the album’s one cover, namely Glenn-Copland’s incredible version of Shenandoah, the 19th-century fur-trapper’s song that became a popular sea shanty and was first recorded and transcribed by Percy Grainger in 1906. The melancholy tune has since been recorded hundreds of times, with my favorites being the hushed, expansive one sung by The Men Of The Robert Shaw Choral, and the almost agonizing and mercifully brief take by bass-baritone John Shirley Quirk with the Wandsworth Boys Choir, Linden Singers, conducted by Steuart Bedford. The latter is included on the great Salute To Percy Grainger album, issued in 1989 and now criminally out of print. Before I digress any further, if you have a CD player, just order the damned thing!
Over a single tone from the choir that gradually opens up into a detailed harmonic arrangement, Glenn-Copland bites into the ancient song like a hungry man fed after long travels: “Oh, Shenandoah, I long to see you/Away you rolling river…” Then, when the choir joins him for “Away, we’re bound away, across the wide Missouri,” you might want a full box of Kleenex nearby. But the arrangement keeps developing in a way that gives you—and him, most likely—the strength to get to the end. According to the liner notes, these are all first-take recordings. Think on that as you listen.
All of Laughter In Summer is just a gloriously intimate, special album, one I have already grown to treasure. At the end of Prince Caspian’s Dream, the penultimate song and one originally recorded for the The Ones Ahead, you can hear Glenn-Copland whisper when the song ends: “That. Was. Exquisite.” You may find yourself saying the same after Shenandoah, or any of the songs on Laughter In Summer. If this does prove to be Glenn-Copland’s final album, no better valedictory could be imagined for his unique and generous career.
Listen to all the songs for Friday here or below.
Also Out This Week
Ulrika Spacek - EXPO (Full Time Hobby) I got super-excited last year when the singles for this fourth album started dropping, praising the multilayered production and arrangement of Square Root Of One. Now, with the whole album under my belt, I can confirm that my prediction that EXPO would be a highlight of 2026. While you can still hear their roots in post-punk, psych, and art-rock (they even sample Radiohead), the specificity of the sounds is almost sculptural. Their approach to layering guitars has always been striking, but they’ve tightened up their game even further, with overdriven undercurrents supporting bright, dry tones and soaring leads. When you look at the credits for the album—Rhys Edwards (vocals, guitar, piano, keyboards, sampler, electronics), Joseph Stone (keyboards, piano, guitar, sampler, saxophone, electronics), Callum Brown (drums, percussion, electronics),
Syd Kemp (bass, electronics), and Rhys Jenkins (guitar)—you get why they’re calling it their most “collective” effort yet. There’s also the fact that they untethered themselves from the “real” at every opportunity, sampling their own instruments and creating new foundations to build on. Even so, Brown’s work deserves special mention, with his creative drum patterns and expressive playing forming the heart of the album. All of that makes me even more excited to see them on stage, so I’m going to try to get there when they play Mercury Lounge on March 21st. They’ll be all over North America through April 8th, so make a plan for when they’re in your environs.
Chimers - ‘In Session’ Live On WFMU I quite liked the “short, sharp shocks” of this Australian band’s last album, 2024’s Through Today. Now I find they’re even better live, with a Wire-like aggression and ability to find beauty in abrasion. There’s even an “exclusive” new song called Optik that’s worth the price of pressing Play. Hopefully, they’ll return to the States in the not-too-distant future. Until then, this will have to do.
Asher White - Jessica Pratt (Joyful Noise) I’m behind on my Best Of 2025 series, so I haven’t even had a chance to write about White’s fascinating 8 Tips For Full Catastrophe Living, which was released last September. And now here she is, knocking me out again with a fantastic full-album cover of Pratt’s 2012 debut. By sharpening the tempos, giving the melodies firmer structures, and making left-field production choices that never miss, White reveals Pratt as a fantastic songwriter from the start of her career. White, who recorded, produced, and played nearly every instrument (acoustic & electric guitars, banjo, bass, drums, electronics, percussion, prepared piano, programming, string arrangement, and synths), also establishes herself as a record-maker extraordinaire. Catch up now so you’re ready for her next move.
John Craigie - I Swam Here (Zabriskie Point) I just checked, and it wasn’t Covid-era psychosis that had me include Craigie’s 2020 album, Asterisk The Universe, in my top 25. I loved it for the way his sharp lyrics blended seamlessly with “Muscle Shoals folk-soul, with shimmering electric piano, country blues guitar, and a rhythm section so deep in the pocket they might have needed a ladder to climb out.” While Asterisk seems destined to remain my favorite Craigie album, this 12th (I think) studio album is a warm feast of singer-songwriter goodness. With sensitive playing from a couple of sets of musicians, it sets a tone of moody introspection that’s far from Craigie’s jocular concerts. I Remember Nothing is the album’s apotheosis, conjuring a mood similar to The Velvet Underground, and featuring fine, philosophical lyrics about a man who bargains with the devil for another life but has his memory wiped clean instead. When the devil, “in one final trick,” brings the memories back, our narrator concludes, “Well, the opposite of life ain’t death, opposite of birth is death/The truth came clear and bright, there ain’t no opposite of life.” Always something to ponder with Craigie, so press play and settle in.
Vegas Water Taxi - Long Time Caller, First Time Listener (PNK SLM) By kludging together last year’s Long Time Caller EP with four more songs to create their second LP, we get the clearest picture yet of what Ben Hambro, Fred Lawton, Charlie Meyrick, Molly Shields, Rhodri Brooks, Louis Milburn, and Holly Carpenter are up to. With a country-rock sound (extra kudos to Brooks for some unhinged pedal steel) that belies their London roots and wry lyrics delivered with low-key charm by Hambro (often sweetened by Shields), we also get to see another side of the Punk Slime ethos.
Danz CM - Myths (Channel 9) The first three tracks on this latest transmission from The Interdimensional Extraterrestrial Time Travelers Society describe in sound mythical creatures such as the Koromodako, who “wandereth the sea in search of a seafaring soul", the Dökkálfar, who “dwell beneath the earth, eyes bright with ochre glow,” and the Leahy of the forest, who’s just looking for a friend. However, the most absorbing tale of all may be the last track, You Can Change Yourself Into Gold, which grows increasingly evocative. Recorded live at the Vintage Synthesizer Museum, every sound is juicy enough to satisfy the hungriest Koromodako.
Mandy, Indiana - URGH (Sacred Bones) Sonic rabble-rousing of the highest order, on their second full-length, this Manchester, UK quartet gets everything in its right place - drums (Alex Macdougall), electronics (Simon Catling), guitars (Scott Fair), and vocals (Valentine Caulfield) - and cranks it all up to five-alarm fire levels. When Billy Woods, who released another horror-rap missive this week, shows up on Sicko!, he sounds positively chipper amidst the sonic emergency.
Carlos Niño & Friends feat. Saul Williams - Elysian Fields/”Pollen On The Earth” (Leaving) I’m reading Black AF History, Michael Harriot’s brilliant “Un-Whitewashed Story Of America,” and it’s the 100th anniversary of Black History Month. That makes two cultural landmarks that have found their soundtrack in these two extended pieces of spontaneous composition. Built on drums, synths, horns, guitars, and words, each follows different paths to conjure the beauty and rage of the diasporic experience. As Williams notes, “The drum was the first wireless communication,” and its message is loud and clear in this rich, risky music.
Note: The graphic above uses an uncredited photo from the Stir Vancouver Instagram account.