Nate Mercereau / Luke Schneider / Heavy Arts Ensemble at First Presbyterian

Join us on Friday, August 29 for a unique sonic experience with guitarist, improviser, and composer Nate Mercereau, alongside ambient pedal steel visionary Luke Schneider. The evening, rounded out by Oakland's Heavy Arts Ensemble, promises to be a transcendent night of creative sound and community.

NATE MERCEREAU

Nate Mercerau will perform a solo set drawing on his expansive catalog, leaning into material from Excellent Traveller (Third Man Records, 2024)

"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 (nontraditinal) 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 3000, Niño and their close collaborator, keyboardist, Surya Botofasina. Nate's (3 years young) Daughter Juniper is on the album. Sam Gendel, Kamasi Washington, Shabaka, 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, Maya Rudolph, Raphael Saadiq, Leon Bridges, Ricky Reed, Lizzo, The Weeknd, Jay Z, No I.D., John Legend, Jon Batiste, 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 and 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

LUKE SCHNEIDER

A native of Dayton, Ohio, Luke Schneider is a pedal steel guitarist based in Tennessee. Over the past three decades he has established himself as an in-demand session and touring musician across the Outlaw Country, Indie/DIY, and experimental scenes in Nashville. Most recently, He has found his place in the landscape of New Age and pastoral Americana music. His well-received debut solo album, ‘Altar of Harmony’ (Third Man Records), is a collection of cinematic ambient compositions created entirely by pedal steel. In the years since, Luke has continued his experimental elevation of the pedal steel guitar and delved deeper into meditative and calming sounds. In 2025, He will be touring in support of two releases, a solo EP titled ‘For Dancing in Quiet Light’ via Leaving Records, and a duo record with modular synthesist Jamie Lidell titled ‘A Companion for the Spaces Between Dreams’ via Northern Spy Records.

Amongst many others, Luke has performed and collaborated with William Tyler, Hayden Pedigo, Orville Peck, Soccer Mommy, Margo Price, Lambchop, SG Goodman, and Peter One.

HEAVY ARTS ENSEMBLE

Heavy Arts Ensemble is a collective of Bay Area musicians. A collage of extended melodic improvisation, live sampling, modular synthesis, live visuals and the outer edges of experimental lo-fi beats. Heavy Arts Ensemble seeks to push deep grooves into trance inducing states.

This Oakland based ensemble gathers the past, present, and future of underground jazz, beat culture and experimental music.