The Black Door: Vinyl LP

Label: Drag City
Release Date: 29th May

A terrific departure from Cole Berliner's other work in Sharpie Smile and Kamikaze Palm Tree as he trades both maximal synth pop and psyche pop for something a little more grounded, real, instrumental and overspilling with beauty. 'The Black Door' is west coast folk breezing through life with a slight waft of the cosmic country, fiddle and a cinematic darkness. If you like Hayden Pedigo, you'll really enjoy this one. 

An essence of otherness in the form of Cole Berliner, breezing
out a vibrant acoustic sequence of bucolic instrumentals,
chasing an old-world sense of beauty, projecting equally into the
ear of listener and non-listener.

Having lived life as an atheist-spiritualist and progressive pop
composer / performer, Cole desired to find his own kind of
devotional music, devoting himself to the cause that became
this album. But it took more than that in the end.

‘The Black Door’ required playing in aspects of traditional genre
formats like ‘country’, ‘blues’, ‘finger-style, ‘gospel, ‘soundtrack’
and ‘ambient’ and Cole is adept at them all, mixing and
matching modes and vibes. Adding to that a cosmic spray of full
circle / circus leap consciousness, ‘The Black Door’ flew open.

Initially conceived as solo acoustic guitar tunes, in the studio the
songs demanded the dynamics of an acoustic ensemble (a
departure from his work with Kamikaze Palm Tree and Sharpie
Smile). This was key. The arrangements form intricate
passages for acoustic, electric and lap steel guitars, acoustic /
electric bass, piano, drums, percussion, violin, viola, horns,
woodwinds and synthesizers. Playing with Cole are violinist
Laena Myers, along with Garret Lang, Dylan Hadley, Sofia
Arreguin, Robert Earl Thomas, Michael Sachs, Sarah Safaie,
Kilan Thorns and Cesar Hernandez plus Cesar Maria, who
mixed and co-produced with Cole.

The music of ‘The Black Door’ is honest modern folk - West
Coast folk - with a rad amount of odd psyche laced within. A
presence in the production eco-system of ominous (but friendly)
ghost theatre, elegant framing for a perfectly civilized, surreal
mystery and exquisite, acoustic folk-chamber puzzle.

Cole Berliner’s solo debut is rich-grained instrumental parlour
music, organically growing on in the speakers and ears beyond,
an album after our own hearts in the challenger tradition of Bert
Jansch’s ‘Avocet’, Marc Ribot’s ‘Saints’ and Jim O’Rourke’s
‘Bad Timing’. As Cole brings a succession of new moods and
qualities to the true spirit of the thing, ‘The Black Door’ opens up
an album-length sequence of musical transformation