digi-squires (sam gendel & nate mercereau)

Like two subatomic particles flying freely through space, Sam Gendel and Nate Mercereau were bound to collide eventually. Both busy players in Los Angeles’ energetic improvised music scene, Mercereau and Gendel are avid collaborators. In less than a decade, Gendel—a saxophonist with a willingness to manipulate his instrument (or play anything else) to get the sounds he wants—has made more than a dozen records, working with the likes of Sams Amidon and Wilkes along the way. Likewise, Mercereau is an imaginative and integrative guitarist, using his instrument to trigger a stunning range of samples and work with the likes of Carlos Niño, André 3000, and Saul Williams. They both have steady solo practices, too, workshops of pure idea.

Gendel and Mercereau finally convened for 2025’s immersive but elliptical digi-squires, the pair depicted on the cover as robed religious figures focused on their respective instruments, with laptops balanced on their knees. That sense of studied play animates their pieces together, from the blissful harmonica-and-drone phosphorescence of “by aventure yfalle” to the slow game of percussion-and-saxophone hide-and-seek they enjoy during “do they do.” During “the village,” Gendel lets his sax melody curl like a halo over a looped lute line, percussion and piano pushing through the cracks between them. Each piece Gendel and Mercereau build together represents another state of shared curiosity and exploration. These ever-adventurous players collide again at Big Ears 2026.