Ducktails - Landscapes (2009)

Ducktails is the lo-fi psychedelic bedroom indie pop solo side project of Matthew Mondanile, a member of New Jersey-based indie beach bums Real Estate. While not too dissimilar in tone from the sun-kissed pop of his main squeeze, Mondanile's work as Ducktails presents a more fragmented, mercurial version of that state of mind. More synthetic, too, than Real Estate, Ducktails is all burbling analogue synths, bedroom processing, and sunburnt soundscapes. The end effect acts as a sort of bleary aural Polaroid taken at a backyard party Real Estate just finished playing, falling square into the Hypnagogic Pop style first identified by Wire Magazine a couple of years ago. Mondanile's output under the Ducktails moniker has been prolific, running to numerous ultra-rare cassettes and CD-Rs, a pair of 7"s, and two "official" LPs, those being a self-titled album in 2009 on Not Not Fun, and Landscapes on Olde English Spelling Bee in the same year. In addition to playing in several other projects, including Predator Vision and the Parasails, Mondanile released a split with Dracula Lewis in 2010, before releasing Ducktails III: Arcade Dynamics , in 2011. 'Landscapes', which is now being released on CD for the first time in a limited run of 500 copies, is a remarkable collection of raw-finished pop with a vivid sheen of washed-out summery euphoria strongly reminding of Ariel Pink, but with a psychoactive chemistry all of its own, evoking feelings of an imaginary lost 80s American dreamscape that was probably never found in the first place