Last month, Beverly Glenn-Copeland announced his long-awaited new album, The Ones Ahead, due out July 28th via Transgressive. The Ones Ahead is Glenn-Copeland’s first studio LP in almost 20 years and the first since the extraordinary career renaissance triggered by the rediscovery of his now-classic Keyboard Fantasies album. Today, he returns with another preview of the record with the track “Harbour (Song For Elizabeth),” a devotional to his life partner. The track features vocals from Jeremy Costello, a member of Glenn’s band Indigo Rising. Also out today is the first of three live performance films filmed at Lakewind Sound Studios in Nova Scotia and directed by Posy Dixon who directed the documentary Keyboard Fantasies.

Commenting on the track Glenn-Copeland says: “On each of Elizabeth’s birthdays, I write her a song. I’m not sure of the date that I wrote this one, but we are lucky she had a copy of it or it would have been lost. I had totally forgotten about it. Elizabeth and I have been friends since 1992. In 2007, at a mutual friend’s wedding, the spark of a deep personal love was ignited (there’s an amazing story here about a dream she had prior to that wedding about us, but I’ll leave that for her to tell!). We married in 2009. Since then, she has been my partner in every aspect of life personally and creatively. This song is included on this album to honor her deep love and commitment to me which kept us afloat during the first years of our marriage.  I need to also acknowledge her dedication over the last few years during a physically and emotionally harrowing time which necessitated her giving up her own creative life to care for me. For me, a harbour represents a place of safety when the wild oceans of life are going berserk. Elizabeth has been this for me in spades. She had faith in my work when no one much in the world seemed to care. She is the love of my life given to me by the universe and I am grateful.”

Transgressive has also announced the re-issues of two of Glenn’s early works – Beverly Copeland and Beverly Glenn-Copeland. Both originally released in the 70’s these two out of print works have become widely sought after by collectors. Revered as modern jazz-folk masterpieces, they have been remastered and re-cut for release by Guy Davie. Both works will be available on CD and Vinyl and out July 7th. Fans can pre-order both Beverly Copeland and Beverly Glenn-Copeland now.

Glenn-Copeland recorded The Ones Ahead in collaboration with producer John Herberman and Indigo Rising (Bianca Palmer, Jeremy Costello, Nick Dourado, Carlie Howell and Kurt Inder), the band who accompanied him on his inaugural European tour, who’s playing lends a cinematic richness to these intricately textured electroacoustic arrangements. The album was recorded in a remote studio in Nova Scotia in late 2021, then finished in 2022, with Herberman recording live from the floor, capturing the dynamic interplay among the group. 

In the tumult of this world, there are constants. People need each other. Every motion brushes against others, moving. None of us are siloed and none of us are still. The music of Beverly Glenn-Copeland drinks deeply from these truths. For decades, the Philadelphia-born, Canada-based singer, songwriter, and composer has drawn myriad musical practices toward a single, luminous conviction: that music can shake us loose from what closes us off from each other. His multifaceted body of work surrenders to the beauty, pain, and great capacity for healing that course through life; in its unguarded sincerity, it invites you to share in its courage. Glenn-Copeland’s new album, The Ones Ahead — his first collection of new music in nearly two decades — deepens these explorations, casting searching light into how all of us must dissolve the harms of this world and carry each other forward into the next.

Photo Courtesy: Brianna Blank