Nate Mercereau contributed to a bunch of the tracks on André 3000’s New Blue Sun — a #1 New Age album on the Billboard chart — and he recently shared a new song, “Facing The Sideways Rain,” a collaboration with New Blue Sun co-producer Carlos Niño and Kamasi Washington.

“Kamasi, Carlos and I have only had one short recording session as a trio, but it yielded a lot of great music. Sometimes it’s like that,” Mercereau shared in a statement. “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.”

He continued:

It’s an acoustic guitar and vocal piece I’ve had for years, seemingly waiting for Carlos’s and Kamasi’s additions….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.  We talked about Egypt a lot before we hit record, and also the soothing effect Eric Dolphy’s music has with babies (Kamasi and I were both new dads at the time).

Listen below.

“Facing The Sideways Rain” is out now via Alpha Pup.