Geologist & Kyle Simon

Brian Weitz has spent more than two decades as the sound manipulator behind Animal Collective, the member known as Geologist for a college major a friend misheard and the headlamp he wears onstage to see his gear in the dark. For years his signature was texture and electronic manipulation folded into someone else's songs; in 2026 he stepped out on his own with Can I Get a Pack of Camel Lights?, a hurdy-gurdy-driven instrumental record built around the drone he first heard Keiji Haino coax from the instrument at a since-shuttered New York venue. The same year brought Croz Boyce, an atmospheric collaboration with longtime bandmate Avey Tare, and The Sirens, a stranger project still: synthesizer improvisations performed at a Joshua Tree observatory and shaped by the light of the moon. The instinct behind all of it is the same one that has defined his work from the start - repetition and texture over melody, ritual over hook.