Beverly Glenn-Copeland recorded Keyboard Fantasies in 1986 while living in Huntsville, Ontario. The album was made entirely with a Yamaha DX7 and Roland TR-707 and self-released on cassette in an edition of only around 200 copies. Very few sold. Almost three decades later, a Japanese record collector contacted Glenn-Copeland, and the recording gradually found the international audience it had never reached in the 1980s.
What interests me is how completely an audience can change without the recording changing at all.
In 1986, the mixture of digital synthesis, meditative songwriting, programmed rhythm and spacious production apparently had no obvious market. Later listeners heard connections with ambient, new age and early electronic dance music.
We often talk about records being “ahead of their time,” but perhaps that gives time too much intelligence.
The music was already there.
What had to change was the network around it: collectors, reissues, listeners and musical reference points.
Sometimes an unsuccessful record is not rejected by history. History simply arrives late.
https://beverlyglenncopeland.com/
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