Nate Mercereau Enlists André 3000, Kamasi Washington, Shabaka, and More for New Album, Shares Song: Listen

Nate Mercereau has announced a new album, Excellent Traveler. The multi-instrumentalist enlists a tour-de-force of players for his solo follow-up to 2021’s Sundays, with collaborators including André 3000 and Carlos Niño, as well as samples of his studio sessions with Shabaka Hutchings, Kamasi Washington, Laraaji, and many more. Ahead of the album’s release on October 11 via Third Man, listen to “Sound Within Sound” below.

In a press release, Mercereau said of the song and LP:

The title “Sound Within Sound” relates to how I think about some of this music, the music created with other music, as Worlds Within Worlds and Worlds Beyond… Expanded into Possible Realities. The main flute and drum sample is a moment of André 3000 and Carlos Niño when they first picked up their instruments to make sound to get levels (during a 2022 session in Hollywood), as played with my guitar later in my home studio in Tujunga.

I felt there was more to explore with this motif that they were playing, so I zoomed in on it, and created more with it. I’m grateful to both of them for being supportive of me making more music with our music. In my set up I have a microphone, which is connected to a sampler, which is controlled by the guitar. When the group is playing something I want to play, I can record what’s happening in the room, drop it into the sampler, and play the sound of the group with the guitar. It maps to the fretboard so I can play it at any pitch and speed. With this approach, Anything can become an instrument. All Possible Realities Are Available. “Sound Within Sound” is a version of a Possible Reality. Reality Expanded. I’m currently on tour in Europe with André and Carlos (and Deantoni and Surya), so it feels great to introduce this new album with a piece of music featuring two of my Traveling creative brothers.

Other guests on the record include Surya Botofasina, Luis Pérez Ixoneztli, Idris Ackamoor, Cavana Lee, V.C.R, Anaiah Rasheed Muhammad, Dwight Trible, Andres Renteria, and Aaron Shaw.

Excellent Traveller:

01 For the Highest Quality Listener Testing the Limits
02 Sound Within Sound
03 Surfing, in Manhattan
04 Excellent Traveler Theme
05 Infinite Palaces of Possibility / Horse [ft. André 3000 and Carlos Niño]
06 Continually Cresting
07 I Am in the Fire Place
08 Worlds Beyond (Into It)
09 Worlds Upon Worlds
10 Watershed, in Oakland
11 Ears as Eyes (Benton, Tujunga, Mayer)
12 Immersive Realization Landscape
13 From One Place to Another
14 Juniper’s Theme
15 DJinn’
16 Sky Spine Curving Into the Horizon
17 Awayness