Real Estate guitarist fosters own group

Ducktails is the side project of Matthew Mondanile, guitarist for Real Estate. While his other band tends to focus exclusively on a hypnotic form of surf music, Mondanile’s ambitions have grown in his newest album, “Arcade Dynamics.”

There’s still plenty of incredibly fun surf-ish music to be found. “Hamilton Road,” “Sprinter” and “Sunset Liner” are the most obvious examples. Each song features guitar tones so clean you could eat off them.

Yet other songs on the album venture into chillwave territory, with their funky and low-fi bass and simple drum patterns. “In the Swing” and “Arcade Shift” allow the listener to momentarily reject the outside world and just soak up the groove.

Aside from those detours, Ducktails occasionally has trouble distinguishing itself from Real Estate, but that’s a forgivable offense. The quality of the music is great enough that similarities don’t matter.

Some versions of the album include an alternate take of “Killin the Vibe,” featuring Animal Collective’s Panda Bear. It’s largely superfluous — evidence that Ducktails can make great music on its own.