When he began releasing music in the early 1970s, Beverly Glenn-Copeland struggled to find an audience for his earnest, emotionally rich folk pop. A career in television as a regular actor on Canadian children's TV show Mr. Dressup gave Glenn-Copeland a paycheck but didn't shine too bright a light on his musical abilities. In 1986, he put together a record using a Yamaha DX7 synth and Roland TR-707 drum machine called "Keyboard Fantasies". At the time it was a short-run cassette-only release, reaching only a limited audience, but online diggers eventually discovered the album and began to investigate Glenn-Copeland's career further.
"Transmissions" compiles songs from "Keyboard Fantasies" and Glenn-Copeland's debut "Beverly Copeland", bundling them with tracks from the lesser-known "At Last!" EP and 2004's "Primal Prayer". There are two recent live recordings too, as the surge of interest in his work allowed him to perform these songs internationally for the first time. Most interesting though is the inclusion of a brand new track (Glenn-Copeland's first in 16 years) 'River Dreams', a devotional-sounding haze of woozy new-age pop that continues the themes of "Keyboard Fantasies" while transporting them into a new era.
Anyone who needs a primer into Glenn-Copeland's unique musical world couldn't find a much better collection than this. The remaster sounds incredible and the choice of tracks highlights Glenn-Copeland's versatility and originality without sacrificing any charm. There's been a glut of crate-digger adjacent reissue material recently, we know, and it's not always worthy of the hype this one most definitely is.