Date Signed: 2019
Label: Drag City
Type of Music: Experimental
Management: Zoë Blilie, zoe@tmwrk.net
Booking: Zoë Blilie, zoe@tmwrk.net
Publicity: Drag City
Web: geologist.bandcamp.com
Geologist is the “nom-de-théâtre” of Brian Weitz, probably best known for his work with Animal Collective. “I started performing with some of the guys in Animal Collective when we were 15 years old,” he says. “That was in 1994. We eventually started doing the project that people think of as Animal Collective in 2000. I actually made a solo Geologist EP in 1999 but never released it. I didn’t get much fulfillment out of solo music and was never inspired to do much of any music outside of Animal Collective until my mid-30s.”
At that point, Animal Collective was working less frequently, and Geologist found himself some gear that would inspire his Geologist project. “I came into new pieces of gear, mainly my modular synthesizer and then later, a hurdy gurdy, that inspired ideas that wouldn’t necessarily fit into Animal Collective,” he says. “My bandmate in AC, Dave [Portner, Avey Tare], keeps asking me to go on tour with him where we both play solo sets and that is how a lot of my solo material comes to be. I have to write something in order to have something to play on the road. Then that leads to an album.”
The Geologist sound has evolved over the years. “My music used to be more looped and collage-based,” he says. “A lot of samples, though not necessarily samples of other people’s music. It also allowed for more chance-based results on the modular synth. Since I started playing the hurdy gurdy, the idea of composing on and playing a live instrument has become a much bigger focus. That may seem like a strange thing for a musician to say, but not this one.”
Drag City is a comfortable home for Geologist; he has long wanted to be on the label’s roster, and he finally is. His debut album for Drag City, Can I Get a Pack of Camel Lights?, is out January 30 and it’s preceded by the “Tonic” single.
“I’ve been wanting to make a solo hurdy gurdy record for a while now.,” Geologist says. “It started as a live set first and foremost because Dave from Animal Collective and I were doing an Avey Tare/Geologist tour, each doing solo sets. I wanted to write all new material on hurdy gurdy, and assumed it would be an ambient drone set, but I was extremely upset with my results. It sounded unoriginal and too indebted to my drone influences. I decided I was in the mood to play distorted guitar one day, but I can’t really solo on the guitar, so I made some synth drum patches on my modular, plugged the hurdy gurdy into a distortion pedal and solo’d over top the synth loop. It was a really fun day so I kept doing it and that lead to writing the material that became Can I Get a Pack of Camel Lights? in just a couple weeks.”
Geologist will be touring the West Coast with Bitchin Bajas in the early part of the year and then heading east. Stay alert for more plans.
