VMP Magazine

For decades, Beverly Glenn-Copeland’s music lay in wait.

From his earliest folk excursions to the experiments in digital synthesis on which he’d eventually make his name, he worked for most of his life in obscurity, chasing what excited him, transcribing songs that he felt drifted to him on what he’s dubbed the “Universal Broadcasting System.” This is the name he uses to describe the mysterious germination of ideas, which come, sometimes, as if from thin air. His music has taken many forms, and it has always bled outside the lines of genre, to which he’s held a lifelong ambivalence. What’s the use of putting music in a box if it’s too alive, too motile to stay there? Glenn-Copeland cross-pollinated disparate genres long before cross-pollination became standard practice for blockbuster pop and niche experiments alike.