Cole Berliner has shared Bongo Syndicate, the second single and music video from his forthcoming debut solo album The Black Door, due May 29th via Drag City. The new video, directed by Brian Bartus, follows the title track we covered last month and offers another window into the Los Angeles guitarist’s instrumental world.
On Bongo Syndicate, guitar and bass push and pull through interlocking lines at a glacial pace — fingerstyle weave with the air of an ’80s Leo Kottke session at ECM. Synth patches lift into the chiaroscuro mid-piece, leaving analogue chemtrails behind them as a keyboard dawn opens out; warbling strings see the track off, soundwaves chattering into ambient mist. Bartus’s accompanying film patches in analogue signals of mystic grasslands and undulating water, with Berliner’s meditative silhouette glitching from biome to biome.
Best known as one half of Sharpie Smile (formerly Kamikaze Palm Tree), Berliner’s solo turn is a different proposition — an acoustic-electric album whose lineups range from stripped-down folk to chamber ensemble to jazz combo, ornamented with lap steel, violin, viola, horns and woodwinds. He cites Bert Jansch, Philip Glass, Elizabeth Cotten, Jim O’Rourke and Marc Ribot among his touchstones, an experimentalist–traditionalist axis that sits naturally on a Drag City roster fond of exactly that pairing. As a session player he’s worked with White Fence, Zsela, PAINT, Steven Brown of Tuxedomoon, and Angel Deradoorian.
The Black Door is out on May 29th. Berliner and his band tour the US through June.
Pre-Order/Save: https://lnk.to/theblackdoor
Cole Berliner US Tour Dates 2026
June 3rd – Los Angeles, CA @ Zebulon (Album Release Party)
June 4th – San Francisco, CA @ Makeout Room
June 6th – Arcata, CA @ Moss Oak Commons
June 7th – Portland, OR @ Turn, Turn, Turn
June 8th – Olympia, WA @ The Crypt
June 11th – Sacramento, CA @ The Press Club (w/ Pregnant, Dog Patch)
June 12th – Nevada City, CA @ Sans Backup Plan Records
June 13th – Joshua Tree, CA @ Firehouse