The Black Door required playing in aspects of traditional genre formats like ‘country,’ ‘blues,’ ‘finger-style,’ ‘gospel,’ ‘soundtrack,’ ‘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 theater, elegant framing for a perfectly civilized, surreal mystery and exquisite, acoustic folk-chamber puzzle. And lo! Cole Berliner’s solo debut is rich-grained instrumental parlor 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.