DUCKTAILS - St. Catherine

"The thing that you quickly learn about Matt Mondanile while having a conversation with him about contemporary indie music: Dude is friends with everybody. Not just with the underground darlings who actually worked with him on the Real Estate guitarist’s fifth album as Ducktails (St. Catherine, out this week) but Ariel Pink, Mac DeMarco, and just about every other prolific, do-everything studio rat likely to pop up on the year-end list of a publication like ours. It could make Mondanile sound like a name-dropper, but he’s sincere and genuine enough that he comes off more as a likeable guy who’s just really excited about how well his buds are doing and how much awesome music they’re making.

That geniality also filters into St. Catherine, an album that approximates the gentle comfort of a Sunday afternoon, while not ignoring that day’s trepidation about the week ahead. At times explicitly autobiographical, it’s one of Mondanile’s most personal albums—the chorus to 'Headbanging in the Mirror,' for example, details the East-to-West Coast relocation that gives him his current sense of fish-out-of-water anxiety. But, as always, he gets by with a little help from said friends, including experimental singer/songwriter Julia Holter, who provides vocals to 'Church,' and electronic composer James Ferraro, who appears on 'Mirror.'" - SPIN