July 11, 2025
By Nate Mercereau, Josh Johnson, Carlos Niño
Openness Trio is a title that could easily be the name of this group – “openness” is the ideal word and description for what is happening here. Listening, Immersive Emoting, Deep Communication, Discovery, Trust, Exploration, and arriving to the moment to witness and share where we are, where we are going, and where we’ve been – these are all things that allow our music to happen in the way that it does.
I feel totally free to bring my full self when playing with Josh and Carlos, and also encouraged to search further and tune in deeper than I thought I could – we offer these things to each other.
“It is very rare to feel so able to trust
anyone so much, it expands your trust
and awareness of yourself, and
your sense of being trustworthy . . .
My favorite thing about playing with
this Trio is in the Title: Openness.
The totally psychic communication,
connection that we have together
is electric and deeply nourishing,
invigorating . . . It is Open . . . “
—Carlos Niño
“The trio’s title speaks to the music and so much more.
The trio and its members have expanded my perceptions in and outside the music.
For me, it’s reinforced prioritizing beauty and deep care of the music.”
—Josh Johnson
Trust music. Our music is the converging of multiple worlds into a singular expression. We each make and release our own records, but none of them sound quite like what we do when we come together and create as a trio. To me, it has to do with the space allowed to bring our full presences, our interactions with the environment, and the continuous awareness and attention we bring to our meetings. Our sound reaches new and specific places we only find together.
One of our first outings as a trio was at the Churchill Orchard, an orange grove in Ojai, California. We came together to play and explore some themes I had written, but a lot more happened …
Josh says of that day — “I remember so fondly being together and playing in the Ojai orchard in early 2021. It was the first time I’d played music with people in a long time, and I remember feeling so so connected. The trio became 3D to me that day – soaring from the start.”
Multi-Dimensional, sonic, emotional explorations. A slice of this day is represented on this album as the piece, “Openness.”
Each time we get together, we have new things we are bringing. Always, it is our openness to each other and the moment, an “… Anything is Possible” intentionality. It’s who we are on that given day, and everything in our lives that have led us here – our possible futures, our possible nows, interacting with Now itself interacting with us. I hear it in the way Josh plays a motif, expanding upon his signature sounds, a new room in his house that we all get to go inside, or in Carlos’s energetic waves, playing a new piece of his changing and growing myriad of instruments, unlocking new potential and unique currents in our group sound. It’s in the conversations we have and our willingness to ‘go there’ immediately.
“I feel that I offer this Trio authentic,
spontaneous charge and enthusiasm
to explore and report, to experience
and reflect in the moment . . . “
—Carlos Niño
Our album, Openness Trio, is five recordings from five different sessions all around Los Angeles and Ventura county – outdoors in the hills of Ojai with a view of the Topatopa Mountains, an intimate living room setting in Elysian Park, in an Oak Tree Cathedral at the Churchill Orchard in Ojai, a Garden of Electronics in the courtyard of an Echo Park home, and a recording session under a pepper tree at Elsewhere in Topanga Canyon.
We feel California, Los Angeles, and Beyond – and we feel Chicago too, Josh Johnson’s original home. The environments, indoor and out … the trees, the mountains, the water, fire … our families and friends, and our expanding world, it’s all here.
—Nate Mercereau
