There’s a strange and beautiful sort of peace that comes over you listening to Lynn Avery and Cole Pulice’s collaborative album To Live & Die In Space & Time. A kind of middle ground between jazz and experimental electronic. A sound that lays over you as if Sun Ra and Mort Garson put together the sweetest tomes the 70s never saw.
Lynn Avery and Cole Pulice are alums of Moon Glyph Records; Avery releasing an album as Iceblink while Pulice released their solo album Gloam, both in 2020. The two began this musical collaboration at the 2020 Drone Not Drones Festival in Minneapolis. They continued these improvisational sessions months afterwards, clear through relocating from the Midwest to Oakland, CA. Eventually these sessions revealed an album to the artists.
To Live & Die In Space & Time locks into the universe, revealing the peace of the void. A piano and saxophone-heavy set that bends and twists with electronic confections giving us a listening experience not unlike jazz straight from the cosmos.
Four tracks make up this collaborative set, built on the backbone of Lynn’s grand piano and Cole’s saxophone. That foundation is added to, manipulated, and rewired with synthesizers and electronics making this album feel like some cosmic jazz suite. It’s not unlike Alice Coltrane, Sun Ra, or Pharaoh Sanders in the delivery and intellectual heft. “The Sunken Cabin(Night)” is the best example, as it’s nearly 13-minute run time gives us a meditative listening experience. A droning journey that is accentuated by Avery’s elegant piano lines, it gives us a tasteful and ethereal world to lie our heads in. Cole Pulice adds saxophone which at times sounds as if it’s being stretched and bent to their will. It’s an ethereal listen.
The album builds up to that epic finale with three shorter pieces that keep that ‘jazz from the cosmos’ vibe alive and well. From “Belt Of Venus” and its slow motion free form drift to “Plantwood(Day)” and its blippy electronics/horn interplay to “Stained Glass Sauna” and that track’s eclectic sound journey that tows the line between German experimentalism of the early 70s and the new age vibes of Steve Roach, it all builds to an epic finale.
To Live & Die In Space & Time is a fantastic album. An album that moves you and keeps you engaged throughout its run time. Lynn Avery and Cole Pulice work a kind of sonic magic here, creating exquisite musical alchemy with piano, sax, and electronics.
‘To Live & Die In Space & Time’ is out now on Moon Glyph Records.
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