Real Estate (album)

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For the Dodgy album, see Dodgy.

Real Estate

Studio album by 

Real Estate

Released November 17, 2009

Recorded 2008–2009

Studio Rear House

(Brooklyn, New York),

Yeah Buddy HQ

(Glen Rock, New Jersey)

Various locations[show]

Indie rock
Genre
psychedelic pop

surf rock

lo-fi

dream pop

Length 39:14
 Label Woodsist

Producer Real Estate

Real Estate chronology

Real Estate Reality

(2009) (2009)

Real Estate is the debut album by American indie rock band Real Estate,

released on November 17, 2009 on Woodsist.[1]

Contents

 1Background
 2Recording
 3Artwork
 4Critical reception
 5Track listing
 6Personnel
 7References

Background[edit]
Future Real Estate founders Martin Courtney, Matt Mondanile and Alex
Bleeker had already played music together in various permutations as students
at Ridgewood High School in Ridgewood, New Jersey. While studying in different
colleges, they kept in touch and would send each other songs that they had
worked on individually. Courtney's demos were impressive enough to inspire
them to form another band after graduating and returning home to Ridgewood in
2008. They were joined on drums by Etienne Pierre Duguay, who had formed a
band called Predator Vision with Mondanile in Northampton and also played with
Mondanile, Courtney and Bleeker as the backing band for Julian Lynch. The
quartet jammed in the basement of Courtney's parents' house, and when Bleeker
moved to Philadelphia, the other three continued working on music. Eventually
Bleeker returned, and after playing guitar since high school, he was asked to play
bass to make it easier to sing for Courtney, who had played bass throughout high
school and had recently picked up guitar to write songs. [2]

Recording[edit]
Most of Real Estate's debut album was recorded from January until June 2009 at
Yeah Buddy HQ in Glen Rock, New Jersey, a studio operated by the band's
childhood friend Sarim "Sam" Al-Rawi. "Suburban Dogs" was recorded at
Courtney's mother's house, while "Fake Blues" was recorded at Courtney's
apartment.[3]
Artwork[edit]
The artwork for the album comes from Italian architect Paolo Soleri's model for
his 'Hexahedron City', from his 1969 book Arcology: The City in the Image of
Man published by the MIT Press. The book details Soleri's architectural
concept arcology, a vision of architectural design principles for very densely
populated habitats.[4]

Critical reception[edit]
Professional ratings

Aggregate scores

Source Rating

Metacritic 79/100[5]

Review scores

Source Rating

AllMusic  [6]

Pitchfork 8.5/10[7]

’’PopMatters’’ 9/10[8]

Tiny Mix Tapes [9]

Real Estate received largely positive reviews from contemporary music critics.

At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from
mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 79, based on 15
reviews, which indicates "generally favorable reviews". [10] Pitchfork labeled it "Best
New Music".

Track listing[edit]
All tracks are written by Martin Courtney, except where noted.
No. Title Writer(s) Length
1. "Beach Comber"   4:29
2. "Pool Swimmers"   3:16
3. "Suburban Dogs"   4:36
4. "Black Lake"   3:30
5. "Atlantic City" Matthew Mondanile 1:50
6. "Fake Blues"   3:41
 7. "Green River"   2:40
8. "Suburban Beverage"   6:10
9. "Let's Rock the Beach" Mondanile 4:42
10. "Snow Days"   4:23
Total length: 39:14

Personnel[edit]
 Martin Courtney – vocals (except tracks 5 and 9), guitar, bass (tracks 3, 4, 6, 7 and 8),
drums (tracks 4 and 8), percussion (track 7)
 Matthew Mondanile – guitar (except tracks 4, 6, 7, 10), SK-5 (tracks 2 and 3)
 Alex Bleeker – bass (tracks 1, 2, 5, 9 and 10), percussion (track 5)
 Etienne Pierre Duguay – drums (tracks 1, 2, 5, 6, 9, 10), bongos (track 2)