I have thought long and hard about which album to subject you all to here.
I get called a musical snob by many of my friends and to be honest, I am OK with that, so I wanted to post something a little bit different.
I toyed with the idea of posting something by The Polyphonic Spree or Tripping Daisy as I love Tim DeLaughter but I thought the Spree would be too well known, then I thought about something by GOAT but their best song isn't on an album, I even thought of posting some French Ye Ye music but not even I am that pretentious (though I do love it).
The main thing I love about music though is just stumbling on something utterly random, something you have never heard before and when you listen to it your jaw just drops and you wonder where this artist has been all your life? I kind of envy older people who were around when The Beatles dropped "Tomorrow Never Knows" on the world for example. Something new and mindblowing that makes you go "what the FUCK is that?" (in a good way...) and this is what Beverly Copeland did to me.
I first came across Beverley Copeland when I was going through a pretty rough time. Nothing life or death or anything but I was just tired, some family issues, some health problems, troubles in work etc etc and I was just drained. I made a conscious effort to stop playing games or watching too much TV etc and just decided to recharge my batteries. Music is good for such things of course so whilst browsing Youtube for something new to listen to I found a channel called Adventures in Sound. A great channel that posts unknown music from all around the world (it's well worth subscribing to if you are after something different by the way)
One song was posted on the channel, "Don't Despair", my "What the FUCK" moment had arrived. Who was this woman with the awesome voice? Did she do all her own music? Where is she from? What else of hers is out there to listen to?
The answer was...nothing. Absolutely nothing. I found this strange as she was very talented so what become of her?
After some sleuthing online I slowly started to piece together the Beverly Copeland story. I kept coming up with results for a Glenn Copeland. An artist from Canada (Actually from Philadelphia but worked out of Canada mainly) who released some electronic music and childrens albums in the 80's. He also worked for Sesame Street as a musician and writer as well as a show called Mr Dressup in Canada (no idea...some of you Canadian listeners may be aware of the show?), he was about to make a bit of a comeback (not that he ever really had any fame to come back to as such) but he also looked quite familiar....
It turns out that Beverley Glenn Copeland is a trans man these days and a lot of people did not pick up on the link (myself included at first) so no wonder information was hard to find. I did find one very important piece of information though, his first eponymous album was getting a small re-release along with some other early work from the early 70's. This was great news, I was finally going to be able to listen to the album that bred "Don't Despair".
And what an album it was. The great voice, the almost dreamlike jazz like music (The good type not the bad type...) and that lovely rough vinyl cut noise. It was perfect for me.
I won't go into the album itself just yet as I want you to listen to it without me forming any early opinions for you.
Obviously because of the nature of the album and the artist this album is not available everywhere (I mean it may be.... it's deffo on Youtube which I will link in this post, it is on his website too but have not checked anywhere else to be honest...)
Its only 46 minutes long too (less really as the final song is just a different version of "Don't Despair" so it should be nice and easy for you all to get through unlike some of the hour long behemoths we have had so far!
So enjoy...or don't, see if I care...
Here is the youtube link to make it easy for you all. I am nice like that.
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Originally Posted by The Rosk
