Geologist :: Can I Get A Pack Of Camel Lights?
Artwork: Izzy Barber
Animal Collective represents this spiritual school of tonal thought that, for nearly thirty years, has pushed the boundaries between the experimental underground sounds established by groups like Harmonia, Silver Apples, and the Sun City Girls, whom they’ve cited specifically as one of their greatest influences, while simultaneously coexisting in the indie scene as a fundamental fixture of popular music. Brian Ross Weitz, known professionally as Geologist, has released his first solo album, “Can I Get A Pack Of Camel Lights?” after decades of releasing music in various shapes, forms, and atmospheric anomalies, as well as with the Washington, DC-based trio Motherfuckers JMB & Co., who also released their debut album last summer, “Music Excitement Action! Beauty!” As prolific and poetically possessed by music as anyone could or should be, Weitz’s oscillating output is just as mythical as it is legendary, as we take a psychedelic plunge into the veteran’s most recent work. Radiating with nostalgia, and the never-ending reaction to youth, and those subliminal sunsets ricocheting from one shoulder blade to the other, Weitz takes listeners on a juvenile journey through a familiar yet unknown universe of texture, spiritual soundscapes, and the oscillating organics of free-flowing wave signals painted within the interior walls of his meditative material. While showcasing the logistics of tonal timing, production, and that signature sound that can only be summoned by the ancient artifacts found within the earth’s precious planetary regions. While expressing the eternal elements of the human experience, Weitz places a worldly wind into the salty sails by way of the hurdy-gurdy, a fiddle-based instrument that is said to have originated from either Europe or the Middle East before the eleventh century, and has found its way across the world, and into the musician's hands nearly a thousand years later.
“Once I wrote this material and played it live for the first time, I felt that wasn’t true anymore, and I wanted to stop saying it. To stop saying “can I get a pack of Camel Lights?”, I had to quit smoking. And to stop saying I couldn’t turn this music into a solo album, I had to do it. Wasn’t sure if I could, so no coincidence it’s titled as a question. Plus, I never said “gimme a pack of Camel Lights” anyway. I can’t pull off that vibe, nor do I want to. Honestly, I probably always said “please,” but that’s not as cool a title”
Cascading with captivating compositions that transition from one body to another, “Can I Get A Pack Of Camel Lights?” takes several loops and turns as its volatile vehicle heads straight for a cosmic cliffside, someplace hidden in the heart of Utah's Moki Dugway, Montana’s Going-to-the-Sun Road, or Hawaii's Hana Highway, where our sensitive sky hangs high above like a biblical blanket seen by every living thing that has ever been. Mixed and recorded by longtime collaborator Adam McDaniel, and mastered by Heba Kirby (The Mars Volta, Zomes, Moon Duo, and Björk, among others), and featuring creative colleagues Avey Tare, Alianna Kalaba, Emma Garau (drums), Adam Lion, Shane McCord (clarinets), Ryan Oslance (drums/percussion), Mikey Powers (cello), and Merrick Weitz (guitar), Weitz effortlessly ensembles a brilliant cast of players to preach to the void about all manner of things good, and evil, and we’re here for it. Featuring tracks “Pumpkin Festival”, “Government Job”, “Shelley Duvall”, and “Tonic”, Weitz truly transcends any expectations of the vibrational apex of his past works. The album stands on its own two liberating legs and dances through the harmonious hallways of our minds like an already cinematic classic.
