3 weeks ago
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It’s difficult to conjure a better summary of Beverly Glenn-Copeland’s third album since the Canadian composer, multi-instrumentalist, singer and trans activist’s work was rediscovered after decades in the deepest obscurity approximately ten years ago.
The more appropriate term might be just plain ‘discovered’ without the ‘re-’ affix applied, however. Glenn-Copeland’s early folk-soul albums (with traces of Terry Callier, perhaps) didn’t gain much notice, and 1986’s seminal cult classic Keyboard Fantasies remained impossibly rare until a Japanese collector contacted Copeland in the mid-2010s with an idea to issue the gentle private press gem properly. That encounter started the chain of proceedings that has led us to Laughter in Summer.
Laughter in Summer wasn’t necessarily intended to be an album. Copeland and his partner in life and music Elizabeth Glenn-Copeland (most of the album’s songs are duets between the couple) were offered a chance to capture their current live set in 2023 in Montreal’s Hotel2Tango studio with producer Howard Bilerman (Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Vic Chesnutt), accompanied by a choir assembled by pianist Alex Samaras (who together with clarinettist Naomi McCarroll-Butler completes the album’s sparse personnel). Infused with a sparse, warm and relaxed beauty and touches of charmingly earnest optimism, it’s not a surprise that it was eventually determined that these performances (all first takes) were too captivating not to share properly.
A valedictory feel prevails over much of Laughter in Summer, enhanced with simple piano and vocal arrangements that make the highlights bear a passing resemblance to unusually resonant secular hymns. At 81, Glenn-Copeland has been diagnosed with dementia, with all the limitations and uncertainties the condition imposes. Coincidentally or not, the album is infused with themes of cherished memories (whether in the form of celebrating the joys of a harmonious relationship or gazing back to formative influences via a cover of traditional American folk song “Shenandoah”) and looking forward to the next generation taking over (the heartfelt “Children’s Anthem”, with its traces of the similarly plainspoken and elegiac final album Countless Branches by the late, great Bill Fay).
The opening sequence is simply stunning. Both “Let Us Dance (Movement One)” and “Ever New” originate from Keyboard Fantasies but the choir – soaring and swirling around Glenn-Copeland’s expressively tender, slightly frail voice and the sparse piano backing – injects both songs with a majestic, profoundly moving pull. The title track is even more powerful: with Copeland-Glenn humming a wordless melody whilst his wife – a perfectly matched vocal foil throughout the album – sings the verses, the song simultaneously celebrates a deep and enduring love and mourns its inevitable passing at some hopefully distant point in the future.
Despite its many strengths, the rest of the album can’t help but feel like a gradual comedown from such a monumental start, but the sincerity and warmth of Glenn-Copeland’s deceptively simple songs is never in doubt.
English (US) · 