Nate Mercereau shares a new track, “Facing The Sideways Rain,” featuring Kamasi Washington and Carlos Niño. Mercereau’s friendship with Niño also recently led to him playing on six of the tracks on André 3000’s surprise new album, New Blue Sun.

Mercereau offers more context: “Kamasi, Carlos and I have only had one short recording session as a trio, but it yielded a lot of great music…We recorded a few improvisations together at Jesse Peterson’s studio, one of which I took home and muted my parts, and combined it with another sonic world I had in mind for Kamasi’s tenor and Carlos’s percussion…and it came together amazingly with what they did. I did some further arranging and decorating to finish it and this is what you hear here. A special connection/collage of time. Thank you to Carlos Niño for asking us to do the session, Banch Abegaze for facilitating, Jesse Peterson for engineering and recording us in his studio, and Kamasi Washington for bringing your full presence of possibility.”

“Facing the Sideways Rain” is an instrumental song that starts off with a strong piano front. Strings and sound effects accompany the melody; one of them sounds like steam blowing off. The listener can hear wind chimes and flutes playing as well, and possibly a saxophone. These sounds create an otherworldly feel as if a new age is coming. The other instruments become more prominent in the middle of the song along with what appears to be…rainfall. The flutelike sounds become more noticeable near the end of the song, and everything eventually fades away.