Geologist, photo by Merrick Weitz

Brian Ross Weitz, better known as Animal Collective’s Geologist, has announced his debut solo album, Can I Get a Pack of Camel Lights? Set to release on Jan. 30 via Drag City, Geologist’s forthcoming project ends his tenure as the band’s only member without an independent studio release and showcases a new frontier in his signature brand of sonic experimentation. To preview the set, he’s shared “Tonic,” alongside a music video directed by Molten Synapse.

Geologist’s first single is named for a now-closed NYC experimental venue where he caught an inspiring solo how from Keiji Haino on hurdy-gurdy, which is now the artist’s instrument of choice. The song is a dense, propulsive and electronically-distorted instrumental, featuring contributions from the artist’s Animal Collective bandmate David “Avey Tare” Portner and drummer Alianna Kalaba. 

“Most of the formative music in my teens was guitar-based, and, at that age, you try to play like your favorites,” Geologist reflected on the project’s origins in a statement. “But I was never very good at guitar myself. A couple years ago when trying to come up with a solo hurdy-gurdy drone set to take out on tour, I heard a story about Greg Ginn playing guitar solos over a drum machine. I was coming to accept that whatever drone I could make on the hurdy-gurdy would never live up to when I first heard Keiji Haino play one at Tonic in 1998. So I went the Ginn route instead and wrote this record. I still can’t play or write like my favorites, but the hurdy-gurdy got me closer than guitar ever did.”

Can I Get a Pack of Camel Lights? was created through collaboration with recording engineer Adam McDaniel, Avey Tare, Kalaba, drummers Emma Garau and Ryan Oslance, clarinetist Shane McCord, cellist Mikey Powers, vibraphonist Adam Lion and his son, Merrick Weitz, who adds guitar on “Government Job.” While this is Geologiest’s first album solely under the moniker, he released A Shaw Deal with Doug Shaw earlier this year, as well as Motherfuckers JMB & Co’s Music Excitement Action Beauty alongside founding Gwar drummer Jim Thomson and Mark Minsker of Third Eye Lounge.

Can I Get a Pack of Camel Lights? is available to pre-order and pre-save now. Watch the music video for “Tonic” below and read on for the album’s full tracklist

 

 

 

 

 

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Can I Get a Pack of Camel Lights? – Geologist:
01 “Oracle Road”
02 “Tonic”
03 “RV Envy”
04 “Not Trad”
05 “Color In The B&W”
06 “Compact Mirror/Last Names”
07 “Government Job”
08 “Pumpkin Festival”
09 “Shelley Duvall”
10 “Sonora”