The best thing about speaking with guitarist-sampler Nate Mercereau and percussionist Carlos Niño — two friends and producers who share the new Openness Trio recording on Blue Note with saxophonist Josh Johnson — is how they strive not to define what it is they do, in as genial a fashion as possible. For if there is no single post-anything genre definition to synthesizing free music and its living, breathing atmosphere within each spontaneous composition, then all terms meant to describe it are futile.
Both Niño and Mercereau are quick to recall their initial meeting at the front door of The Townhouse, an on-the-beach venue in Venice, California that Niño helped run, at the release party and trio gig for Mercereau’s Joy Techniques album, on his own How So Records imprint.
“We played, it was a great show, I was mega-feeling it, and Carlos walked onstage after and said, ‘Bro, there’s information in your playing that I’m hearing that I want to interact with,’” recalls the guitarist. “It was true immediate enthusiasm, right when I finished the set. I kinda knew this guy and was excited by the prospect so I invited him to my monthly thing at The Virgil. Within the week, he was onstage with me and the same group making music. Right after that, he and I began just making our own music, and we’ve been on this huge wave ever since.”
Getting hold of Josh Johnson — a session man on albums with the likes of Miley Cyrus and Harry Styles and a member of the Jeff Parker ETA IVtet, maker of such forward-thinking albums for Northern Spy such as Unusual Object and Freedom Exercise — was but a spirited expansion of this twosome’s closeness, despite each man having met the saxophonist-composer at different times.
“We actually both almost suggested working with Josh at the same time which was cool,” says Mercereau. “He’s an incredibly radical musician who people pay attention to.”
Trusting in Freedom of Movement
When I suggest that the mix of live music on Openness Trio — captured in sessions around Los Angeles and Ventura County along the hills of Ojai, within a living room setting in Elysian Park, under a pepper tree at Elsewhere in Topanga Canyon — and the in-studio manipulations that warp and woo its sounds signify “a freedom of movement,” both Mercereau and Niño freak out fabulously.
“I think that we are all responsible, we as musicians, you as one who writes about this, to create a new language,” says Niño. “That’s what this is, what it is we do: freedom of movement,” he adds, excitedly. “That’s beautiful. Language is evolving. It’s meant to evolve. When I started using the term ‘spontaneous composition,’ I got that from Adam Rudolph who got it from Roscoe Mitchell and Muhal Richard Abrams. What Nate and Josh do — if you’re talking about improvisation — is different from what Anthony Braxton did. Marshall Allen with whom I work calls it ‘vibrations of the day.’”
“Think of this as trust music,” adds Mercereau.
Niño responds: “Words such as ‘groove’ and ‘jam.’ These terms are different now than they were. As a journalist, what you say will mean something different now than it did before. You are also charged with deciding how to better describe what we do. And I can tell you are not lazy. ‘Trust music’ — that’s a big one because we’re showing how we care to be with each other, and explore each other’s vulnerability, the depths of our secrets and such. We’re sonically reporting from the inner depths. Freedom of movement? Yes. We’ll give you credit whenever we use this term.”
Music on Music
All within the last 12 months, Niño has released albums such as Placenta (International Anthem) and Energy Path (in collaboration with Shin Sasakubo), Mercereau dropped Excellent Traveler (Third Man) and both shared in the sweetest of Subtle Movements (Leaving Records) with pianist-keyboardist Surya Botofasina.
Also coming in late August from International Anthem is Saul Williams Meets Carlos Niño & Friends at TreePeople, where the poet and spoken-word artist joins the percussionist under black oak and walnut trees in Coldwater Canyon Park, Los Angeles in late 2024, with Mercereau along for the party. Are these recordings meant to fit together? Is fitting together the point?
For Niño and his collection of whistles and bells and gongs and congas and such, he sees all his work as intersectional and communal. “They are unique, but they resonate and align with each other, these recordings … they are a community,” he says. “They are friends. It is festive in a way. There is an interest in the different combinations, connections and chemistry. There is an interest in the space; not just its closeness and density, but the wealth of space and how that makes you listen differently.”
It should be stated, too, that Mercereau sees what he does as a writer and producer for the likes of pop artists Shawn Mendes, Lizzo, Leon Bridges and other artists as an additional part of his continuum. “If something needs to happen to make more sense for Leon and Shawn, I make that happen. I consider them and open myself to explore their energy.”
The guitarist is quick to remind us that both Niño and Johnson were on Mercereau’s 2021 SUNDAYS album and also the 2022 Ojai Orange Grove Concert. “We’re only now debuting as triple-billed on the cover,” says Mercereau of the new Blue Note release, “but I record everything that we do live. What we did together on the recordings as Openness Trio went far beyond any of the parameters I had ever set before. This new album feels like a trio, three men fully bringing newness.”
What if something completely “other” shows up during a live concert? That is what happened during “Hawk Dreams,” the first track on Openness Trio, where Mercereau ushered in a massive synthesizer choir based on whim and wonder. “I heard that sound later, added it and created a whole new zone,” he says.
Niño adds: “We listened back to these live recordings and dreamed with them, imagining a new sonic reality added to the moment. That sensation elevates things and obscures the line between ‘live’ and ‘studio,’ making it all one thing. We are connecting, as deeply as possible, with the actual sounds, environment, the space and the acoustics of where we’ve played. There are all kinds of acoustic realities, and we are interested in all that, including the one that would have us almost in a vacuum. As long as it’s not stressful and confrontational, there is no environment or place or sound that we would not want to explore.” JT