Infinite Possibility: A Conversation with Nate Mercereau on ‘Excellent Traveler’

Poet T.S. Eliot once noted, “People exercise an unconscious selection in being influenced.” Although one can feel the impact left by another individual on them, it is often difficult to quantify or qualify the vastness of the mark they have left. It is no different for art, where aesthetic antecedents are sometimes clear in one’s output, but there are still other more subtle hues of inspiration invoked in their work. The teachings of family, friends, and mentors and the lessons learned during a life lived all – subtly or otherwise – impact artistic expression. Only deep introspection can provide a true sense of the scope of these influences. It is this fact that makes Nate Mercereau’s Excellent Traveler (Third Man, 2024) so compelling.

As an album featuring Mercereau’s unaccompanied instrument, Excellent Traveler is technically a solo recording. However, while the guitarist’s own thoughts and experiences emerge, the record makes clear they did not develop in an isolated bubble. Throughout, the artist triggers samples of voices within his sonic universe. As Mercereau calls it, the album is “a type of diary, or a moving sonic photo album, representing Traveling Excellently, physically, emotionally, dimensionally.” These influences include the ideas of his musical heroes – Laraaji, Luis Pérez Ixoneztli, and Idris Ackamoor – and collaborators- André 3000, Carlos Niño, Surya Botofasina, Sam Gendel, Kamasi Washington, and Shabaka. The samples also bring in Mercereau’s family, as evidenced by his three-year-old daughter Juniper’s addition to the work. 

However, Mercereau also looks beyond particular individuals and towards humanity more broadly. Field recordings from New York (Manhattan, Brooklyn), California (San Francisco, Oakland, Tujunga, Los Angeles, Topanga, Venice Beach, Twentynine Palms), and Europe (Amsterdam, Köln) are each treated as collaborators themselves. The message of their incorporation – that experiences in these places also guide his language – is evident. So do the various sounds of nature, from wind and water to fire and birds. 

The eclecticism of the samples and how they are weaved into the album makes Excellent Traveler an utterly distinct experience. It becomes a fool’s errand to apply traditional musical labels to the record. It incorporates improvisation but is not quite “jazz.” At times, the music is ambient and peaceful. At others, it exhibits equal moments of urgent fervor. The music has electronic elements without sacrificing a deep acoustic quality. Excellent Traveler provides a deep, fascinating, and unpredictable insight into Mercereau’s artistic psyche.

PostGenre: What do you feel you learned the most in terms of solo performance between Joy Techniques (How So, 2019) and Excellent Traveler? It has been only five years between their release dates, but the two recordings are very different.

Nate Mercereau: For me, music is about exploration. It’s very appealing to continually go down other avenues. I feel like that leads me to a lot of different places. The variety is interesting to me. Seeking out that variety is interesting as well. 

PG: Do you enjoy the search perhaps even more than the actual result? 

NM: I wouldn’t put it like that. It’s all part of the same thing. I search and then record. I go somewhere or many different places emotionally, physically, and, in some ways, dimensionally. And then I create from those places. I record it and put it together to represent what the experience has been like and then share it. All parts of that are meaningful. All those parts of the process have the same level of meaning for me. 

PG: Perhaps tied to that, you previously expressed how you are seeking freedom musically. Do you find that some of the structures of Western music hold you back in what you are trying to obtain? 

NM: I think about music as a universal world that also creates possible worlds and possible realities. So, as it relates to Western music, I don’t know if I think about it very much. I think about all music, and that’s where the freedom is for me. I want to work without any constraints. I like to get into a process and fully explore that process. And that’s what’s happening with Excellent Traveler. A lot of the music on the record has been created based on samples being played on the guitar. I’m doing a solo instrument album, but it is interpolating and playing all these samples of people in my life and environments. I like getting into processes and fully exploring them. But I don’t think of things necessarily in relation to Western music. That terminology is not that meaningful to me. 

PG: As far as your samples, what is your process for determining what to do with them? What is your method for going from sample to song? 

NM: It’s something I do a lot at different concerts I play. I also bring this process into sessions with other musicians. And, sometimes, I’ll take a solo trip to a location to see what sounds are there and utilize them. It’s a matter of playing with the sample, exploring it, and then actually dropping different samples into the guitar and seeing how they react. I see how the samples work together, creating their own instrument together as played through the guitar. And if what comes out of it feels good, I just ride that wave and create as much as I can with those sounds. 

Sometimes, it shows up in a solo performance or solo recording where the sample has so much in it that I could do a lot just by playing it with the guitar, interpolating it, and mapping it to the fretboard. Then, I will add some guitar synthesizer layers to it. Other times, I’ll create more of a collage of multiple different environments or musicians or sounds of myself. So, all of that is in the music. I want this record to be the widest, most expansive representation of all the different ways that I discover samples and bring them in. It still didn’t get the entire world because I recorded so much material for this. But it did get a very wide-angle view of what I was experiencing over the last year. 

PG: Are you ever concerned that how you are weaving in samples may cause some aspect of the guitar to get lost in the process?

NM: No, because the guitar is present on the album. You can hear the sound of the electric guitar. You can hear me strumming the strings. It may not be as evident as Andrè’s flute or Luis [Pérez Ixoneztli]’s percussion from the samples, but you can still hear the strum of the guitar. There’s also some pretty clear guitar information as it relates to some of the synthesizer sounds. Part of this record, for me, was about totally pulling the lid off of what a solo guitar album could be. And what a solo instrumental album, in general, could be. I’m trying to share the idea of world creation, and the guitar happens to be the instrument I use to create. It’s still there. 

PG: As far as performing solo while responding to other sounds – in this case, the samples – do you think you learned anything from your duets with the Golden Gate Bridge that helped with this project?

NM: Yes, totally. The Golden Gate Bridge project was one of my first steps into looking at the world and sounds in the world as a place of infinite potential. The duet with the bridge was a very singular experience and moment in time for me. But it did open up how I look at any number of sounds. And that led me to make something like Excellent Traveler. A thread between the Bridge project and this current album is definitely there in terms of looking at the world as a place of infinite possibility in regards to sounds that are available. 

PG: So, do you see much of a difference between “musical” sounds and sounds more generally? 

NM: That’s an interesting question. There is no substantive difference, I guess. For me, it all comes down to whether a sound inspires me. Am I inspired to make something with that sound? Does it translate for me in a way that I want to continue creating with it? 

There’s a lot of stuff that I’ve tried to repurpose, almost. Some sounds might be more abrasive in the world [though functionally] necessary. For example, the sounds of a signal at a crosswalk. Those sounds let people know that it’s safe to cross the street. Those types of sounds are very percussive and tend to be pretty loud. I’ve heard them in different ways and at various points in my life. Lately, when I hear something like that, I realize it is a great sound that would be such a unique addition to a piece of music in some form. This project helped me look at the world in a way of appreciation for sounds. It fostered an amazement in how many different things you can hear at any given moment when you’re out and about in the world. That’s a nice place to be. 

PG: Carlos Niño’s liner notes to the album mention that Excellent Traveler combines spontaneous solo composition, nuanced improvisation, and exploratory world creation. What exactly is the difference between spontaneous composition and improvisation? Some people might say that they are the same thing. 

NM: Yes, I like to use a lot of different terms to describe what we do. Certain terms get associated with certain things, and improvisation is one of those. I am improvising, and I like to improvise. But that’s not all that’s happening on this record. Other things are happening too. I’m bringing my whole life to the moment of creation pulling from all my history and the entirety of the present moment. I’m pulling from the people around me and all of my influences. The back of Excellent Traveler has an entire paragraph of phrases and words I use to describe the music. I like to use a lot of different terminology.  I like to use a lot of different words. But to me, it’s not about whether something is improvisation or not. Or whether something is a spontaneous composition or not. Are improvisation and spontaneous composition the same thing? Yes and no. I like to keep it fresh with the way I describe things. That’s all the difference is.  

PG: Some musicians avoid the word improvisation entirely because they feel the use of the term may belittle what they are doing in those moments of creation. 

NM:  I do relate to that. Plus, in Excellent Traveler, there’s also so much more than improvisation. There’s a lot of arrangement and songwriting mixed in with improvisation. So, I’m not hardline on using, or not, that word. To me, it’s just part of a myriad of other terminology that I like to use. 

PG: In terms of those compositional influences you mentioned a little earlier, there is also a short documentary about the album that goes a little deeper into these influences. In it, you mention that you worked with Herbie Hancock on a recording session. Whatever came of that project? 

NM: I don’t know. I was invited to a session, and I was there. It felt like I was just being invited to be around this person with the idea of creating and sharing. [Herbie] seems like a person who is always making music and working on something. Whether that’s going towards an album or not, I don’t know. But the experience itself was great. It was one of those moments to be around somebody who’s innovated so many times throughout their musical life. And that inspired me to think about what I could do that was also innovative but in my own way. That experience was a big catalyst for starting to think outside the box like that. But in terms of an album, I truly have no idea. 

PG: As far as thinking outside the box, on the album notes for Excellent Traveler, you mention that you assume that listeners can handle anything musically. Do you find that listeners tend to be receptive to what they hear when it is something out of the ordinary? Or is there some hesitancy and desire to stay towards what they find comfortable? 

NM: I think listeners are very receptive. Very awesome. Very tuned in and aware. I give listeners a lot of credit to receive the music I make. I don’t make any choices toward trying to make something more palatable in some sense for some imagined listener. I’m not really into that. I think about the most radical possible person or being, and that is how I consider myself, as well. So, I want to make the things that go there fully; to be there for myself and them. So, yeah, I give them a lot of credit for being able to go along with the journey and not dampen any expression, only sharpen it and share it very directly. 

PG: When you are working on a higher profile project – with someone like Leon Bridges or Lizzo – do you think you approach music differently in those regards? Do you try to focus on accessibility a little more, or do you just have the listener come to you?

NM: I do the same thing in all contexts. If anything gets changed, it is a result of what the music needs to do for the particular artists I’m working with. I’m still going to come with the same energy. I guess, luckily for me, my interests are very wide-ranging and broad. If we make something that appeals to a lot of people, that’s great. But I don’t view making music that way as dumbing it down. Just because something has broad appeal doesn’t mean that I have sacrificed myself. It’s just that I’ve come together with other people to make something that makes sense for what that other artist’s life is, and what they want to share. I’ve become part of a greater expression in that way. 

PG: That makes sense. For instance, people associate André 3000 with his work with Outkast and other hip hop music. But what you are doing with him on flute, either in his band or on this album, is nothing like that music. And because of that, through his flute music, you are exposing the listener to different sounds and ideas than they may have anticipated. 

NM: Absolutely. Expansion is awesome. I love being a part of expansion. Leon’s music is like that too, in its own way. I don’t put any expectations on what that expansion needs to be or sound like. It’s just a feeling that’s put into the music. It’s energy that we come together to create, and it’s always one of possibility. Music can sound very unfamiliar, or it can sound very familiar. And there is a scale of degrees in between. You can also create new scales and new ways of feeling things too. All of that is available in all these different sounds. However, the most important thing is the energy put into the creative process. 

PG: The music on Excellent Traveler – as well as on André’s New Blue Sun (Epic, 2023) – often sounds very peaceful. Is that aspect something that you intentionally keep in mind when creating music?

NM: Interesting. I didn’t make this music with the intention of it being peaceful. For me, the music feels very passionate and intense. It has elements of peacefulness for sure because I feel at peace in my life sometimes as well. But there’s a lot of exploratory scene changes or more intense sections. Even in something that might appear peaceful, I think my inner world is very active, and I feel that in the music too. But it’s interesting to hear you say that you find the music peaceful because everybody responds differently to things. I’m happy to offer my most direct expression because if someone gets something out of it that I didn’t intend, that’s exciting to me. 

‘Excellent Traveler’ is now available on Third Man Records. It can be purchased on Bandcamp. More information on Nate Mercerau can be found on his website.

Photo credit: Joshua Whiteman