Geologist (Animal Collective) Announces New Album "Can I Get A Pack of Camel Lights" - out 30 January

Geologist is the nom-de-théâtre of Brian Weitz, whose pursuits have been an active part of the music underground since he was 15, playing and working in alignment with an organic ensemble of friends that would one day choose to call what they were doing Animal Collective. Can I Get a Pack of Camel Lights?, the first-ever proper Geologist solo album — due out January 30th — is Brian’s pursuit of a musical answer to the not-oft-enuf-ast question: what if, back in the 80s, Ethan James had made a hurdy gurdy album for SST?

The lead single, “Tonic”, owes its namesake to a transformational show Brian witnessed at the legendary NYC club — a howling hurdy gurdy set from Keiji Haino. The instrument’s expansive space led him by-and-by to this sound: overdriven hurdy gurdy leads snaking over throbbing analog synths, Dave Portner's thumping bass line, and Alianna Kalaba's steady beat. An undeniable hybrid of post-post-punk energies! As Brian describes it:

"Most of the formative music in my teens was guitar based, and at that age, you try to play like your favorites. 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."

Geologist’s first true solo record is an inspired ride through avant, prog-jazz, kraut, post-punk and minimalist vibes merging in electronic infinity. An epic electro-acoustic textile of many colours cut from the life and times of Brian Weitz, he threads impulses and happenings across space on each track, cherry picking from his psychic archive: be it the vibe of an energizing repeat drive from Tucson into the desert, the unending thrill of the mind-meld in eternal recurrence, or an incendiary live witness one night in in 1998. Geologist uses the drone and chanter strings of the hurdy gurdy to highlight these moments in the kaleidoscopic flow of memory.

Geologist US Performances 2025

• 20th Nov - Washington, DC @ Rhizome (w/ The Caribbean)
• 22nd Nov - Baltimore, MD @ The Red Room (w/ Mike Alfieri, Obi Feldi, Iron Joy)
• 11th Dec - Washington, DC @ Songbyrd (w/ Ducks LTD, Phoebe Rings)
• 12th Dec - New York, NY @ Giorno Poetry Systems (w/ Eric Copeland)
• 13th Dec - Baltimore, MD @ Metro Gallery (w/ Bitchin Bajas)