“Glass’ hooky, 80s styled tunes are not going to appeal to everybody; their lyrics are obscure and surreal, the tracks on this album have many quirky layers and the theatrical tone will not be to everyone’s taste. However, they are obviously a talented bunch, bringing together sometimes complex arrangements, injecting great melodies and of course, the guitar work is always impressive.”
- Emma Gould
Read the full review here
…But, it’s that magical chemistry that results from the clever lyrics and bizarre arrangements, that will make you feel like you just can’t help but admire the ingenuity and abandon that Glass brings to the fore.
- Lisa Torem
Read the full review here
“There is a fine line between artistic merit and pretension, and on paper a debut concept album, inspired by the life of a 19th Century inventor most listeners will never have heard of, slides firmly over to the latter side of the scale. This is one of many reasons why music can never be judged on paper. ‘The Sound of Glass’ is a gripping and exquisite blend of post-punk and dark pop akin to current NME darlings The Horrors that is sure to storm the mainstream. This is an album of ballads in the purest sense of the word, an all-too-brief collection of seven tales that will take you out of the mundane realities of your day to some kind of dim and distant dream state, crisply produced and artfully arranged without stretching any structural boundaries – indeed, there is nothing overtly complex here. Herein lies the beauty of ‘The Sound of Glass’ – too fey for those with heavier tastes, but a batch of songs that can provoke such an emotional response while still providing hummable and memorable rhythms without any real visceral impact is to be applauded.”
- Greg Porter
Devolution Magazine
“This album was inspired by the inventor from the 19th Century, Anthony Philip Glass. He apparently invented a machine that could transmit sound through time. This is quite an apt title for an album that actually sounds like it has fallen through time from an unspecified decade. ‘Driftwood’s Daughter’ kicks the album off in a crisp indie style, not particularly dark or alternative but good all the same. What is immediately apparent is what a great voice vocalist Alexander King has. ‘Without’ is a much darker track and the bands Post Punk influences become more apparent with a bit of White Lies thrown in for good measure. ‘This Odyssey’ is a rocking little number that is on your free covermount CD. ‘Nothing in the World’ is a track which starts quite sorrowful and then gradually builds into something much more powerful and rocky. The next track ‘When the Rain Falls’ is probably the darkest track on the album. Alexander gets a chance to show off his impressive vocal range with some intelligent lyrics and a catchy but emotional chorus. ‘The Last Transmission’ has a different feel in that it sounds like poetry set to music if that makes sense, and ‘My Elan’ sees the album end in a quite Punk/Deathrock fashion. This is a band that definitely has mainstream potential as well as alternative appeal, but still manages to pull off that tricky task of maintaining a style all of their own.”
- Mark Smith
Unscene Magazine
Martyn Rudd of Screaming Tarts magazine has kindly published an interview with me discussing my research into Anthony Glass, and the music that has been created as a result.
I’ve been researching the life of Anthony Glass for over a year, and so far I’ve got more questions than answers. A bizarre collection of coincidences, synchronicity and luck, or are there larger forces at work?
Since the album launch I’ve had more time to start filing and organising the resources I’ve managed to lay my hands on so far. It’s a baffling jigsaw puzzle of first, second and third hand reports about a mysterious man who might never even have existed – at least in any way we would recognise. I’ve been taking copious notes in a bid to get my thoughts in order and have managed to transport a good carload of papers and documentation back to my home where I can start putting the known facts in some kind of context.
Which are the most pressing questions? Well, the death of Glass Snr. is obviously a key event – and Colonel Van Riper’s involvement in it. There’s much to learn about the lives of both men which I think could lead to some kind of answer as to how Edward Glass died and who was responsible. The machines, both full sized and portable – what happened to them? Was Anthony Glass a clever hoaxster, as his father was purported to be? And what of Anthony’s mother, Edward’s wife – the trail rapidly goes cold once Anthony is sent away following his father’s death (murder?).
And bringing us up to date – how do the cassette tape, the discovered video recording and the business cards people report finding fit in? Am I the subject of an extension of the Glass myth? Is someone mocking me, and if so – why? All I know is, I must find answers. Anthony Glass and his peculiar story are seeping into my life, my work, and the music I produce to the point where I wonder how much of it I’m in control of.
YORK BAND ‘GLASS’ RELEASE DEBUT ALBUM WITH A LAUNCH SHOW AT THE DUCHESS, YORK ON SATURDAY 16th JANUARY
In early 2008 GLASS singer/guitarist Alexander King inherited the contents of a storage unit, in which was a suitcase of letters, news clippings and journals relating to Anthony Philip Glass, a 19th Century inventor and showman. Anthony Glass had a colourful life, purporting to have invented a machine that transmits sound through time which he toured the world demonstrating. His life story – pieced together in a gripping blog updated by Alexander (www.thesoundofglass.com) – is peppered with murder, intrigue and a stay in York’s own Bootham Park Hospital (then York County Lunatic Asylum).
Inspired by the man himself, the band GLASS was formed, and present their debut album with a launch show at The Duchess in York on Saturday the 16th of January. Compared to Roxy Music, Wire, Editors, Magazine, The Cult, Interpol and The Cure among others GLASS deal in stark, powerful rock with surrealist lyrics and a highly theatrical live show.
Support on the night comes from two of York’s finest indie-rock acts – Dorien Starre and The Blueprints.
Formed in early 2008 GLASS represent the best of the classic post-punk and new-wave acts while tapping into the current vogue of dark rock (Editors, White Lies, Interpol etc). The band consists of Alexander King (vocals and guitar), Andy Curry (vocals and synths), Jim Stafford (bass) and Dan Whiting (drums). GLASS have already shared a stage with up and coming national acts like Ipso Facto, Cinematics, The Pains of Being Pure at Heart and Victorian English Gentlemen’s Club.
(l-r) Alexander King, Jim Stafford, Andy Curry, Dan Whiting
From the Eastern Daily Press, May 8th 1926:
Colonel Maurice Van Riper (born in Norwich 8th April 1850) has passed away aged 76, of heart failure.
Having moved to London early in his teens, Van Riper first worked as a butcher before enlisting with the British Army and seeing action in Abyssinia, the first and second Boer wars among others, and being rightly and notably recognised for his leadership and firm resolve.
Van Riper retired due to illness in 1920 with full honours and worked mainly in the private sector offering his extensive skills to the world of commerce and business.
The Colonel will be most familiar to readers due to the unfortunate allegations made against him at the turn of the century by the son of Edward Glass, a London entrepeneur who was shot and killed in suspicious circumstances. Van Riper was cleared of all charges and maintained until his death he had never met Edward Glass or his son, blaming the elder Glass’ peculiar mindset being as he was something of a fantasist.
He is survived by a son Terence and a daughter Lilly.
It has now come to light that following the York Incident, Anthony Glass spent between 1933 and 1940 in Bootham Park Hospital, also in York. Whether this was a direct result of what happened at the City Art Gallery, or if his crumbling mental state finally required him to seek rehabilitation is not clear. Either way, the trail goes somewhat cold at this point.
Bootham Park Hospital was built as York County Lunatic Asylum around 1777, and was one of the earliest psychiatric hospitals in the North of England.
In 1772 at a meeting at York Castle, the Archbishop of York called together gentlemen of the three ridings of Yorkshire, along with Dr Alexander Hunter and architect John Carr. His intention was to create a lunatic asylum to prevent the mentally ill from being placed in unsuitable institutions like prisons. Carr’s practice was at its peak and the grand building was completed by 1777.
With its applied Tuscan columns, pediment and fashionable Venetian windows, it was reported in the press as ‘an elegant and expensive affair’, but it didn’t please everyone. William Mason, a Precentor at the Minster, wrote that its extravagant design was a waste of public money and suggested it should instead be advertised as ‘a lunatic hotel’. It was later discovered that despite its grandiose exterior some patients were held in terrible squalor. Indeed the conditions at the asylum were the stimulus for the foundation of the The Retreat at York which became world renowned for its pioneering treatment of the mentally ill.
The abuses at the York Asylum later became the centre of a great controversy. A national investigation in 1813-14 led to questions in Parliament. Some of the asylum records were burned in a suspiciously timed fire and two different sets of financial accounts were discovered. The resulting scandal led to substantial reforms in the way the hospital was run.
- historyofyork.org.uk
If the information I’ve discovered is correct, Glass would have been around 50 years old when he emerged from Bootham Park, by which time the Second World War was underway. I think it’s quite unlikely he would have been drafted to the war effort with his history of mental instability – but with no career, no reputation, very little family and surely a dwindling or non-existent inheritance, what would Glass do next?
Lately I’ve been having a recurring dream, which I can only assume is in some way linked to the amount of time I have spent researching the Glass mystery.
It always starts the same way – a crack opens in my bedroom wall, and for some reason I climb through the crack and find myself in the bowels of a machine. Steam scorches my face and huge oil-slick cogs grind around me like slavering jaws, dripping their saliva on my head and back as I crawl beneath them. A continual cacophony – like every piece of music ever made played at once – assaults my ears and I am terrified.
After what seems like an age, I glimpse a sliver of light at the end of a shifting corridor and make my way towards it. The light is emanating from a crack in the machine’s wall, much like the one I used to enter it. Relieved I clamber through to find myself on my back in a huge library. I lift my head and see a man with a large moustache and a young boy. The boy looks scared and hides behind his guardian, as the man raises a shotgun, levels it at me, and with a smile on his face, pulls the trigger.
At this point, I awake.
