Is there something in the water in Ridgewood, New Jersey, or does the Garden State just happen to be coughing up a lot of blissed-out psychedelia these days? Like childhood neighbor and long-time collaborator Matt Mondanile (Ducktails, Predator Vision, Real Estate), Julian Lynch has been churning out more quality homegrown recordings than we have time to digest. His sound, a one-man patchwork of vocals, wah wah guitar, bass, drums, and kitschy synth effects, carries the happy-go-lucky quality synonymous with recent Ridgewood output into the territory of the singer-songwriter.

The eight songs on “Orange You Glad”, his most recent self-release, are not afraid to be pretty, just as they don’t seem to have any qualms about being actual “songs.” That being said, Lynch’s sleepy Saturday afternoon sketches always seem chug forward in spite of themselves, just as surprised as we are by the jolts of pure melodic pleasure they occasionally produce. Artificial tablas rhythms flirt non-committally with Saint Patrick’s Day bagpipes and 60’s baroque pop, sometimes confounding our expectations and materializing into hum-able tune. At the album's most charming moments, all of the elements in the mix (percussion and bass included) seem to be bogged down in a thick coating of molasses, struggling to keep up in the musical rat race, but always somehow landing exactly where they need to be.

Do It Yourself, Do It At Home, even Do It Out Of A Crappy Computer Mic, Julian Lynch’s music is a stunning example of making the most out good ideas and limited means. “Orange You Glad” takes full advantage of the upsides of low fidelity recording, allowing scorching guitar riffs and Lynch’s nasal John Lennon falsetto to bleed into a variety of wooly textures. Again, whether Lynch is relying on accident or sleight of hand is your guess as good as mine. But when a slip in the mastering drives home the chorus of a song with crescendo overkill, we are all too happy to go along for the ride.

Words: Emilie Friedlander

Originally published on Foxy Digitalis, Spring 2009





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Matt Mondanile and his co-conspirators are certainly working a lot of bikinis in a twist these days, blowing up the blogosphere as the DIY forerunners of a new “beach pop” phenomenon. The hype surrounding Ducktails and Real Estate is well deserved, but dwelling too much on the “drinking a pina colada in black Ray-Bans and an unbuttoned Hawaiian shirt” aesthetic undermines their breadth and talent as musicians.

Predator Vision, a prog/metal trio uniting Mondanile (Ducktails, Real Estate), Etienne Duguay (Real Estate, Cave of Time), and Ben Daly (Wavehead), transports us out of the Jersey Shore and into a basement in Amherst, Massachusetts, blinking our eyes against a screen of red Nag Champa smoke and the remains of last night’s beer pong. Western Mass, after all, is the place where all three of these guys spent their college years, and Predator Vision’s second offering gives us a good idea of all the late afternoon noodling that made them the musicians they are today.

Who is who and what is what here generally gets lost in the squall, but the album is two parts guitar (Mondanile and Daly) and one part drums (Duguay), with a guest appearance by the mighty Jeremy Pisani (Red Favorite, Jow-Jow The Death Knell Rung) on bass. Elongated guitar drones, plucked blues motifs, and bass hooks worthy of Ozzy himself combine in a jubilant Brillo Pad of feedback and missed musical connections, buoyed by an unstoppable rhythmic pulse. Predator Vision is clearly the kind of setting in which Duguay can truly shine, and his drum work on this album can range everywhere from a light, Corsano-style pitter-patter to the sound of twenty Hells Angels headbanging in unison.

After the cultural and musical melting pot of track one, Pisani leads the gang in a bass-heavy elephant stomp through the Sahara, pushing past fronds of guitar reverb and pockets of buzzing flies. And just when we become too thirsty for words, there it is again, materializing out of the shimmering heat—a patch of blue, a waterlogged guitar melody reminding us that Ducktails, far from his native New Jersey, is still alive and well. Or is it just a mirage?

It will be well worth your time to keep tabs on these guys over the upcoming year, even if it takes some time for Pisani to find his way back into the mix. Until then, keep your eyes peeled for the Predator Vision/Sun Araw Split, which should be a party and a half.

Words: Emilie Friedlander
Photo: Abandon Ship

Originally published on Foxy Digitalis, Winter 2009




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This month, Breaking World Records releases a limited edition 7 inch by Ducktails, a.k.a. Brooklyn-based musician Matt Mondanile, marking the onset of fall with a prayer for eternal summer. Though he proudly identifies suburban New Jersey as his heart’s true home, Mondanile’s sound is equally the product of four years on the Western Massachussetts noise scene, a prolonged stay in an immigrant neighborhood in Berlin and a thriving re-issue culture that brings psychedelic and world music gems back from the dead.

‘Beach Point Pleasant,” the album’s first track and centerpiece, is built on a 2-second instrumental loop from Gétatchèwe Kassa’s “Tezeta Slow,” featured on Buda Musique’s celebrated Ethiopiques series. “Tezeta,” Matt Mondanile explains, “means memory or nostalgia, and the song is kind of an ode to past beach times.” Repeated ad infinitum, the passage abstracts into a kind of indeterminate, “oriental” refrain, like the generic soundtrack of a Mondo Cane-style travel log. As yellowed, Technicolor images of virgin beaches, unfurling palm fronds and coconut milk straight out of the nut begin to take shape in our mind, we are lulled deeper into our post-colonial fantasy with the introduction of new voices. A meandering pentatonic guitar line bubbles leisurely upwards to the surface of the mix like a 1960’s Cambodian pop recording passed through an underwater chamber—wah wah in the fullest sense of the term. Meanwhile, ambient casiotones layer gently into the space between loop and guitar melody like small gusts of ocean wind. The word horizontal is key here; for all his vertical layering of sounds, Ducktails’ ode to lost time is closer to a plateau of sun-dappled bliss than an emotional riptide.

The rest of the songs on the recording possess a similar horizontal quality, each with its own, unique feeling-plateau. "Pizza time," a short track following “Beach Point Pleasant,” offers us a glimpse of the beach by night, marking a moonlit ceremony in which locals armed with traditional instruments, flaming torches and portable boom boxes descend upon the shore to dance and make merry. Each of Ducktails’ songs builds upon a single repetitive, root motif; here, he forfeits the archival sample for a cheezy up-tempo Casio beat, elaborating the “world kitsch” aspect of his sound through his twangy manipulation of guitar and bass.

On side two, Ducktails switches gears yet again with an evolving series of asymmetrical bongo phrases, artificial in source (drum machine) but human in their imperfection. If “Beach Point Pleasant” marks a nostalgic moment in the album’s evolution, and the second track, a celebratory one, “Gems 1 and 2” would seem to constitute their meditative conclusion. Soaring, synthetic drones stretch out across an early morning sky as Chinese flute melodies (perhaps sample, perhaps not) float in and out of earshot. Over time, the bongos become increasingly insistent, increasingly anarchic, as though their player, electronically mediated as he is, were imploring the sun to peak its head above the ocean horizon.

While it has absolutely no pretensions to being “intellectual”, Ducktails’ project rides a fine and nuanced line between East and West, the analog and the electronic, the manual and the pre-fab. Though it lends itself to repeated home listenings, it is probably best enjoyed in the way Ducktails himself likes to enjoy his favorite records: on the road, in his parent’s car, driving through the suburbs with the windows down.

Ducktails, s/t 7", Breaking World Records, 2008. Limited edition of 300. Handmade cover art.

Words: Emilie Friedlander

More Info:
Ducktails website
Ducktails Myspace
Breaking World Records Website

More Tunes:
Ducktails II, coming out soon on Tape Tektoniks, 2008





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