Interview: Posy Dixon on filming Keyboard Fantasies

Keyboard Fantasies: The Beverly Glenn-Copeland Story in now screening at The Underground Cinema in 180 Studios.

Director Posy Dixon first heard Beverly Glenn-Copeland in the summer of 2017, when a friend played “Sunset Village” in their studio. They didn’t recognise the voice but within two years, their debut feature film would be focused on the man the behind it.

The story they uncovered is now one of underground music legend. Keyboard Fantasies was recorded by Glenn-Copeland on a Yamaha DX7 and Roland TR-707 in his home studio in Huntsville, Ontario, and sold only a handful of cassettes upon its release in 1986.

More than three decades later, in 2015, Japanese collector Ryota Masuko contacted Glenn-Copeland asking to buy the remaining stock of the cassette. A reissue followed in 2017, sparking Glenn-Copeland’s first international tour at the age of 74.

Glenn-Copeland’s story has often been told as one of rediscovery. Dixon’s film is more interested in what happens after the music is found and how an artist makes sense of being met by the audience that once eluded him.

The film packs a huge amount into its concise runtime: Glenn-Copeland’s reflections on growing up trans in the second half of the 20th century, the power of intergenerational collaboration, his sense of spirituality, and, of course, his musical journey itself. For fans, it is a precious insight into their hero and for anyone coming to his work for the first time, it is a beautiful introduction to a singular figure.

A documentary about Glenn-Copeland wasn't always on the cards for Dixon. When Dixon first reached out to him, they were preparing for another film. Glenn-Copeland had given a lecture at the Red Bull Music Academy in Montreal on music, movement and social cohesion, and Dixon was researching the same themes so he found him on Facebook and wrote to ask for an interview. His reply was, in their words, “the sweetest letter”.

“[Your] statement, so brilliantly described, is the core of something universal which I have long tried to induce, describe, and touch with the music that this collective unconscious/Universe sends my way,” he wrote back. “Let’s converse.”

Dixon and Glenn-Copeland spoke on Skype for two hours that first time. They would continue talking for a year before Dixon went to meet him in person and by the time they flew to Nova Scotia and got in a car with him for the eight-hour drive to meet the band, they already knew what he wanted the film to do.

“Lots and lots of conversations helped me understand the stories he wanted to tell,” they say.

The film itself came together quickly. Glenn-Copeland and his band, Indigo Rising, already had two shows booked, Cafe OTO in London and Le Guess Who? in Utrecht. Dixon, producer Liv Proctor and editor Tim Beeston decided those shows would be the starting point.

“We were writing Kickstarters, and begging favours all over the place,” Dixon says. “Shout out to my neighbours who even put half the band up in the flat upstairs.”

Tour documentaries usually follow artists with established, long-running careers already behind them but Dixon knew this one would be many viewers’ introduction to Glenn-Copeland.

“It was a bit of a leap of faith, but I really just wanted the audience to get to experience time with Glenn as I had,” they explain. “My 2018 New Year’s resolution was ‘make a beautiful movie, make every single frame count’.”

The trope narrative of the “lost artist rediscovered” is one Dixon was wary of and they pushed against it by letting the music lead and speak for itself. The movie doesn't grieve the time between Keyboard Fantasies' release and later valorisation and instead frames the delay as a neccessity for it to meet its rightful audience.

“I was listening to all of Glenn’s records, and thinking a lot about time travel,” they say. “The first time I spoke to Glenn, he told me he thought the universe had sent him Keyboard Fantasies too early. In the ’80s, people weren’t ready for it; they were too busy doing free market capitalism and shiny cars. But my generation, we were the ones it was for.”

In the years since, Glenn-Copeland’s status has been solidified by artists including Blood Orange and Bon Iver covering and reworking his music, while releases such as Transmissions: The Music of Beverly Glenn-Copeland, The Ones Ahead and Laughter in Summer have been met with critical and fan acclaim. He has become a much more public figure than the person Dixon followed on that first tour. Watching the film back now, they sees it differently.

“It feels like a time capsule of a very innocent, exciting time,” they say. “For both myself, Glenn, the band and all the people who contributed to the making of it.”

Keyboard Fantasies’ new run at 180 Studios’ Underground Cinema speaks to the lasting force of Glenn-Copeland’s story and the film Dixon made around it. It may be a time capsule of a specific moment for a specific individual, but the questions it answers are evergreen: how do artists survive being out of step with their time, how can younger listeners become caretakers of older work, and what does it mean to make music before the world knows how to hear it.

“It’s an intimate space, a cocoon to get lost in,” Dixon says. “I hope people can sink in and let go for an hour, come out with an appreciation for what artists and musicians so selflessly give to the world.”

Keyboard Fantasies: The Beverly Glenn-Copeland Story screens at 180 Studios on May 1, 2, 3, 6 and 7 as part of The Underground Cinema. Buy tickets now.