After you’ve had the type of profession that Nate Mercereau has had, you possibly can perceive why he bristles on the idea of genres. “I’m not essentially making an attempt to make issues to go over folks’s heads,” he advised PopMatters again in 2019, selling his genre-bending instrumental solo debut Pleasure Strategies. “I feel that’s at all times been what jazz has primarily been. Individuals are making an attempt to attach as emotionally as potential. Issues get misplaced alongside the best way, and you will get self-indulgent. So I used to be conscious of creating one thing that may be a concise assertion.”
As a California child who grew up attracted to each type of music and ultimately getting his first touring gigs on the gospel circuit, he might simply have lower checks by serving as a guitarist, producer, and songwriter in his quite a few collaborations with hitmaking producer Ricky Reed. Mercereau has helped create hits for the likes of Kesha, Leon Bridges, Shawn Mendes, Lizzo, John Legend, and The Weeknd. Whereas he can nonetheless step right into a pop star studio at a second’s discover, it feels as if he actually discovered his calling when, in 2021, he launched an album of duets with a hardly ever called-upon legend: the precise Golden Gate Bridge.
“The Golden Gate Bridge duet mission was a giant opening up for me, opening as much as infinite risk,” Mercereau says to PopMatters in 2024. After seeing an article about noise complaints from San Francisco residents over the “hum” that the bridge generates as wind swoops via it, he introduced out his guitars to create new compositions in collaboration with the construction. It was a definite endeavor that caught Mercereau a variety of press however netted much more followers for his hanging compositional capability. When talking of that infinite risk, he’s blunt: “That’s one thing I convey to all elements of my life now.”
Glorious Traveler is Nate Mercereau’s newest instrumental epic and his first for Jack White’s Third Man Data. Whereas Pleasure Strategies noticed Mercereau bend his guitar into sounds that seemed like synthesizers however finally blurred textural boundaries, Glorious Traveler is the results of years of persistence, having discovered that music can tackle heretofore unimagined types. It’s of no shock that his personal profile has been boosted as of late following his enjoying with OutKast‘s André 3000 on his daring New Blue Solar mission from 2023 and the tour that’s stretched nicely into 2024.
“The method of creating New Blue Solar was, and continues to be, an unbelievable area for me to discover — it’s at all times – go additional and additional,” Mercereau beams. “It’s actually superior, and I give a variety of credit score to that atmosphere for permitting concepts to take form and increase from.”
He’s labored closely within the Los Angeles “all style” scene, and his New Blue Solar counterparts are scene legends like keyboardist Surya Botofasina and multi-instrumentalist Carlos Niño. In truth, an album that the trio launched shortly after New Blue Solar netted the Los Angeles-based Leaving Data their first-ever charting entry on Billboard, a dynamite feat for music that performs far exterior the realm of frequent business expectation.
“For me, every thing is in regards to the capability to think about, and I’m totally Going There,” notes Nate Mercereau. “I’m going ‘all in’ on a regular basis in each facet of my total life. I actually benefit from the course of of creating music and looking out far into these depths. Whether or not it finally ends up for an album of mine or for/with another person, it’s about opening up and seeing what comes via. It’s so totally different relying on the atmosphere and the collaborators; all potential potentialities issue into what one thing sounds and seems like.
“Proper now, I’m occupied with creating room in music for a lot of various things to talk — music that may imply a lot directly and likewise change form as life adjustments.”
You may hear this throughout Glorious Traveler, which options Mercereau’s ever-flexible guitar textures becoming a member of up with samples of different musicians he’s recorded on the fly. These samples are fed in via his guitar and he performs these samples via the fretboard, altering their velocity, pitch, and really material of existence. “I Am within the Fireplace Place”, for instance, makes use of a flute and percussion break in fast succession to craft a brief track that has construction and propulsion however feels shaken out of time, a piece that’s up to date because it may very well be archaic. To Mercereau, that’s precisely the purpose.
“I’m full in on every thing I do,” he notes of the album’s intentions. “I don’t regard any of my initiatives as roughly essential; I’m full in on all of them. I wished to blow the roof off of what it means to make a solo instrument album, increase the vary of what the guitar can do, and make one thing consultant of my life in a really direct and contemporary manner. Glorious Traveler is a illustration of all of the explorations and moments of discovery I recorded over the course of a yr and a half. As a result of it options so many samples of musicians, life actions, and environments recorded all around the globe somewhere else, it has a diverse sound. It’s life. I can take heed to a track on the file and movie each second that went into it, and the place and who it was from and with.”
These samples he collects stem from legends and associates alike: Carlos Niño, Laraaji, Kamasi Washington, André 3000, Shabaka Hutchings, and plenty of extra. The monitor “Ears As Eyes” goes even additional, sampling his personal guitar imitations of birds and forest sounds to provide them a fantastic and unusual new presence. On this planet of Glorious Traveler, that is simply par for the course.
“‘Ears As Eyes’ incorporates a variety of samples from varied locations, the total title is ‘Ears As Eyes (Benton, Tujunga, Mayer)’, and people are the locations a number of the sounds come from,” Nate Mercereau explains. “Amongst many issues on this one, I’m enjoying the sound of a stream with the guitar, that means I can play the stream sound in any pitch, so it turns into a type of water instrument. The fowl sounds and all fowl sounds on the album are samples of myself doing fowl impersonations with the guitar. Once I replay the samples as a chord with the midi-guitar, it seems like a flock of birds all chirping in numerous pitches and speeds. I initially created the primary model of that sound for ‘Each Second Is The First And Final’ on [2021 album] SUNDAYS. I’ve made a number of different variations of it since, and it pops up on data right here and there. Guitar Birds.”
But Guitar Birds aren’t the one specific collaborative call-outs. Whereas Dré is given an specific flute and vocoder credit score, the percussion of Carlos Niño additionally will get a standalone point out. When PopMatters spoke to Leaving Data founder Matthew McQueen earlier within the yr, McQueen discovered Niño as a type of mentor. Mercereau’s reference to the bandleader is kind of totally different.
“My relationship with Carlos is energetic; it features a lot, and we do so much for one another,” Mercereau notes. “Carlos really urged the concept of doing a solo guitar album early on in our relationship, proper once we started making music collectively after Pleasure Strategies got here out. I’m very stoked to be round musicians and creators and folks like Carlos Niño and Surya Botofasina, André 3000, Deantoni Parks, and so many others I take into account shut associates and collaborators. We actually do so much for one another and present up for one another in huge, expansive methods.”
Whereas the writeup for the album refers to Nate Mercereau’s sample-breaking methods as a type of naturalistic DJ’ing, I couldn’t assist however zone in on the title of 1 track as “DJinn’”, which itself may very well be a reference to the spirits often called Djinns from spiritual mythology. The composition itself is considerably chaotic, as flutes and a non-bridge sort of sustained hum float above a hurried and chaotic twister of percussion. But Mercereau bristled at referring to his music, and even the method of creating it, as religious.
“I don’t use the time period ‘religious’ to explain my music or what I’m doing as a result of that phrase comes together with a variety of concepts of what it already means for folks, which I’m not occupied with representing,” he explains. “I need new descriptors and contemporary intentions. I like considering of phrases or phrases for music and the best way it occurs. I take into account myself a gift individual with very energetic internal and outer and multi-dimensional worlds, and I present up totally for these infinite potentialities to return via. If somebody feels spiritually lit up via the music I share, I assist it.”
In a later a part of our dialog, he goes one step additional on the boundaries of labels and descriptors like “ambient” or “experimental” being tied to his creations: “I keep away from calling music something regarding phrases like ‘instrumental’ or ‘soundscape’ as a result of these phrases put a ceiling on what the music might imply or do. I’m far more into the intention of the music and the sensation within the music because it’s being expressed or acquired … however even that, I’ve begun to let go of at this level. I’m right here. I take into account music to be dynamic, multi-dimensional, and past. The Music Is Intense, Full On, Attainable Realities. I really feel excessive and passionate enjoying and making it.”
Whereas Pleasure Strategies got here out by way of his personal How So Data, the boundary-pushing Glorious Traveler has discovered a brand new champion within the type of Third Man Data, Jack White’s uncompromising file label. Whereas it might look like an uncommon pairing on its floor, Third Man has been nothing however supportive of data that problem frequent musical and business notions, making Glorious Traveler a wonderful candidate for launch underneath the imprint.
“Third Man has been into it,” Nate Mercereau notes. “They’re into what I’m as much as, and now we have a superb relationship that manner as a result of I’m additionally into what they’re doing and the way they do it. It’s an fascinating file to have extra publicity — from the label assist, to the various company featured as samples, nevertheless it’s simply what’s taking place proper now, it feels very aligned. My inventive output has at all times discovered its personal path, and at no matter juncture folks tune into it, the oldsters who get it’s going to get it, and it will likely be significant for them. It’s significant for me and seems like a good way to proceed increasing.”
As Nate Mercereau continues to tour with the New Blue Solar crew and prep for the Glorious Traveler launch, he appears extra excited than ever on the sheer potentialities he has as a musician. Glorious Traveler expands upon his quite a few livestream experiments and collaborations to change into one thing bolder, grander, and extra daring than ever. Bending sonic boundaries in how Mercereau is doing requires unbelievable talent and dedication, however he’s approaching all of it with a way of awe and marvel. At the same time as he sometimes works on new pop data, his definitions of what’s potential change into extra unbound by the day.
“I’m not likely into guidelines, however I do like moving into processes and totally exploring them,” he beams. “Glorious Traveler was to be a solo guitar album, however utterly opening up the ways in which might occur by enjoying any sound accessible, creating new ones, and making issues radical by any means — something taking place that makes sound accessible to be made right into a playable actuality, or an ‘instrument,’ via the guitar. My objectives had been to take advantage of expansive album I might via the guitar and have as many individuals and experiences in my life as potential, with intuitive musical creations.”
Nate Mercereau then indicators off with a textural collage that feels just like the spirit of Glorious Traveler summed up completely: “Worlds Inside Worlds, Worlds Upon Worlds, furthering and enjoying realities, zooming in, Immediate Sonic Collaging, enjoying Not Notes, Going There and reporting again, Accelerating Actuality, Exploratory Music with a Sense of Discovery.”
We couldn’t agree extra.