TOURDATES
USA
"I call him a magician," André 3000 would say from stage every night of the 'New Blue Sun’ Live Tour. "He plays guitar, but it almost never sounds like a guitar…" referring to Nate Mercereau's travel rig of guitar, guitar-synth, guitar-sampler, pedalboard, laptop, aerophones and percussion. Nate is also set up to sample what is happening around him, including himself, at any moment. 'Excellent Traveller' is a guitar album, but not in a usual way. Everything you hear on the album has come through the guitar, played by Nate, fingers on the strings, soli even, but the sound source is a vast array of recordings that Nate made in live and studio sessions with all of the featured artists named. This is a traditional approach with totally unique (nontraditional) elements that speak to the infinite sonic and energetic, spiritual and creative potentials that Nate hears and lives. "I feel like I, and we, contain the vastness of all infinite potential, and in that potential, my imagination and feelings about it go beyond words, and it's all in the music!" Nate, charged like a sunray, continues: "my greatest inspirations in life and music come from feeling a sense of infinite possibility, because I do believe that’s what is available in life on planet earth and beyond. I focus on opening myself up to this freedom as much as I can, and it’s something I maintain awareness of and cultivate in all aspects of my life and creativity. Freedom is very important, I offer it to myself and to others around me. I feel very alive and tuned in when experiencing, hearing, seeing and doing things that remind me that anything can happen." Frequent Mercereau collaborator Carlos Niño thinks of Nate as a "very rare creative artist who is truly a multi-instrumentalist - put any instrument in front of him and he will make wondrous sounds - a composer, producer, so open to exploration." An excellent traveller on the surface of earth, throughout our human world, and within the vast internal depths of vision, code and eternal vibration, Mercereau keeps moving… This exquisite album of spontaneous solo composition and nuanced improvisation features living legends Laraaji, Luis Pérez Ixoneztli and Idris Ackamoor, as well as Andre 3000, Niño and their close collaborator, keyboardist, Surya Botofasina. Nate's (3 years young) Daughter Juniper is on the album. Kamasi Washington, Shabaka, and Cavana Lee all intersect in Mercereau's psychedelic quests and adventures as well. Considering Nate Mercereau's vast array of collaborators and projects over the years, from Sheila E., Ledisi, Goapele, Jennifer Hudson, Raphael Saadiq, Leon Bridges, Ricky Reed, Lizzo, The Weeknd, Jay Z, No I.D., John Legend, Jon Batiste, The Golden Gate Bridge, and all those mentioned above, the question of what threads tie it all together, what thoughts, what feelings… To that, Nate answers: "Exploration, freedom, creativity, discovery, openness, searching, emotional depths, inner/outer and multi dimensional worlds, immersive experience, intensity, fire, water, earth, curiosity, listening, infinite possibility… the threads that tie it all together come from me being a person living a life, and I’m moving through and in and around this life in every way I find resonant, in the process of exploration itself, and all that comes with it. There is always a sense of discovery, going further into emotional depths and possible realities. “Going There” and reporting back. The way it is presented and shared throughout my life is always different, because of course it is — I am a person who is growing and changing, finding myself and my environment in ever present fluid nowness, so my expressions and interests will be changing as I find new ways to engage with it. My albums are all the same in that they are all me, and they are different in that they are all me." Travel on Nate, enjoy that flow, we're riding with you… -Written by Carlos Niño
