Lynn Avery & Cole Pulice Phantasy & Reality

Phantasy & Reality is the latest from Lynn Avery & Cole Pulice, following 2022’s To Live & Die In Space & Time. After years of living in the same city (both Minneapolis & Oakland), where the duo were regularly performing, improvising, writing, and recording together, Lynn and Cole have been geographically separated on opposite coasts since the fall of 2022, forcing them to find new ways to explore how they collaborate. Consequently, the production on Phantasy & Reality became more of a collage effort; a mixture of work recorded together in-person, along with layers of overdubs/production/processing completed individually, which they incessantly workshopped and traded back and forth. Despite the physical distance, the pair wanted to preserve the intimacy and immediacy of their collaborative language as much as possible. This new workflow was something that straddled improvisation and composition, mixing material from studio sessions with home and field recordings taken on their phones and portable recording devices. The record also has a very special guest feature from Bay Area trumpet player and composer Ambrose Akinmusire on “A Mote of Frozen Eternity”, whom Lynn and Cole have long adored, becoming friends with while living in the East Bay. The resulting album is spacious, patient and gorgeous, equal parts delicate and expansive. The textural quality of the work is at the forefront as well, with field recordings and the physicality of the instruments they play providing a grounding force for these floating compositions. Like the title implies, Lynn & Cole’s sound and vision straddles two blurry worlds: Phantasy & Reality.