[Photo courtesy of Lucan Furio]

By Sage Spirk, Contributor

Animal Collective’s Geologist (Brian Weitz) and White Magic’s Doug Shaw (Highlife) are partnering up to travel down avenues of experimental pop and rock with their new collaborative record. A Shaw Deal is set to release via Drag City on January 31.

Animal Collective has been an active band since 1999, with charting albums such as Strawberry Jam and Merriweather Post Pavilion. However, Weitz and Shaw are branching off with the origin story for their upcoming project, setting it apart from previous works. 

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As stated on Weitz’s bandcamp, A Shaw Deal was born from carefully stitching guitar clips Shaw would upload to his Instagram, with Weitz being the one to weave them together. Weitz intended for his work to be a personal project and an eventual birthday gift for Shaw, but he found Shaw’s playing to be a perfect depiction of his own “fantastic spirit.” Before Weitz knew it, their collaboration was beginning to “sound like an album.”

If you want an early taste of Weitz and Shaw’s brilliance working in tandem, listen to “Route 9 Falls,” which is track one on their new album. It’s noisy, trippy and unrelenting. The music video that accompanies it is just as hallucinatory, with distorted images swirling and bending repeatedly. The duo also teased other song titles, such as “Ripper Called” and “Petticoat,” but fans will simply have to wait for the new year to hear the scope of those tracks.

For more insight on Weitz and Shaw’s creative process, check out Weitz’s Bandcamp page detailing his creative process, and mark your calendars for A Shaw Deal.