Geologist, photo by Merrick Weitz

Every Friday, Relix surveys the wealth of new music released over the past seven days and selects dozens of standouts for the Relix Staff Picks playlist. Read on for the highlights from this week’s batch.

Brian Ross Weitz has spent two decades spinning new experimental threads out into the heart of alternative music. Under the moniker Geologist and as a member of the mercurial Animal Collective, Weitz has employed his leftfield sensibilities in electronic sound manipulation to weave unconventional textures through their abstracted psychedelic pop tapestries. As his band became the defining voice in avant-rock, and bandmates Avey Tare (David Portner), Panda Bear (Noah Lennox) and Deakin (Josh Gibb) earned acclaim for their solo outcroppings, Geologist remained singularly focused on collaboration. Today, he’s released his long-awaited solo debut, Can I Get a Pack of Camel Lights?

Geologist’s first independent offering centers the hurdy gurdy, a traditional folk instrument that resembles a cross between a viola and a toy piano and emits a churning, warm acoustic drone. His hand-cranked string instrument of choice runs through the album, ranging from a distorted wail on the dubby and enthralling post-rocker “Tonic,” to grounding bass thrums behind the uptempo loops of “Pumpkin Festival” and a hum in the enchanted ambience of “Shelley Duvall.” Peers who helped sculpt the unpredictable 10-track genre collage include recording engineer Adam McDaniel, Avey Tare and his son Merrick Weitz, who added guitar to “Government Job.”

In a new interview with Relix, Geologist spoke to a career of formative influences and experiences that echo through the record, including regular Animal Collective collaborator John Cale. “He was saying that, if you’re on a live instrument, you have to be present and it is the same thing with a sampler,” the artist recalled of an exchange with the legendary singer-songwriter:

“I do think about that a lot in terms of when I’m able to be present with my electronics—how to be hyper present and physically interact with them. It’s been an inspiration. If I’m playing this drone and I’m faking it with a modular synthesizer, when I would do it with John, I would make it so that I had to have a finger on a trigger pad on my modular. I would have to open up the volume envelope to let the sounds out of the synthesizer—I made it so that it was controlled by a finger touch pad to honor that stuff, but then I thought, ‘I’ll just get a hurdy gurdy. I want to experience that more as someone who’s been so focused on loops and electronics. I want to physically interact with something where I have to be more present.’”

At long last, Soulive have returned with Flowers, the soul-jazz trio’s first full-length studio album in a decade and a half. The influential and adaptive combo of guitarist Eric Krasno, drummer Alan Evans and keyboardist Neal Evans crafted their follow-up to 2010’s Rubber Soulive with a retreat to Flóki Studios on Iceland’s Tröllaskagi Peninsula, where they could reconnect with their collective sound and immerse themselves totally in their telepathic interplay. All three artists produced the project, and their focused, collaborative approach yielded an eclectic and undeniably funky document of their 26-year creative partnership.

The latest batch of Relix Staff Picks also includes new music from Annabelle Chairlegs, Beck, Kashus Culpepper, Carolina Chocolate Drops, Draag, Langkamer, Fabiano do Nascimento, Shintaro Sakamoto, Group A.D., DJ Harrison, Courtney Barnett, Victoryland, and many more gems. Tune in here.