Matthew Mondanil is Ducktails (live, they are a trio). Matthew Mondanil is also in Real Estate. Both bands are from Ridgewood, New Jersey. Ducktails sound a little like Real Estate in that both are "beachy." Ducktails do not sound like Real Estate in that it goes way more into psych sprawl far off otherworldly land.

We'll be honest with you (hey, it's what we like to do), the first couple times we listened to Ducktails we really didn't "get it." We'd just never really heard anything like it before. It was all kind of hazy and had all these slow swirls and mellow loops and no real clear melodic pattern that we could hear. And above all, it sounded like the soundtrack to someone surfing on the moon.

You know, we still don't "get it," now that we think about it. But we have grown to like it a lot. We wouldn't even know where to begin with other band comparisons (the Real Estate comparison was a gift due to the shared member). Maybe, like, Animal Col----nope, forget it. Ducktails don't sound like any band or dude we know. As we said, this is an enigma wrapped in a riddle wrapped in Tang wrapped in a Pina Colada.

Ducktails play Monster Island Basement, on Thursday, July 16th.