Ending out the week with a taste of Americana via Real Estate at The Pitchfork Festival in Chicago from July 15, 2012.
Real Estate is from Ridgewood, New Jersey. They formed in 2008. The band is currently based in Brooklyn, New York, and consists of Martin Courtney (vocals, guitar), Alex Bleeker (bass, vocals), Matt Kallman (keyboards), Sammi Niss (drums) and James Richardson (guitar).
To date, the band have released six studio albums: Real Estate (2009), Days (2011), Atlas (2014), In Mind (2017), The Main Thing (2020) and Daniel (2024).
After issuing singles on the Underwater Peoples and Woodsist labels, Real Estate’s 2009 self-titled debut received critical acclaim, including an 8.5 rating and Best New Music tag from Pitchfork Media. Review aggregator Metacritic gave the album a normalised rating of 79%, indicating “generally favourable reviews”. Tours followed, supporting acts such as Girls, Kurt Vile, Woods, and Deerhunter. In 2010, Real Estate performed at the Pitchfork Music Festival in Chicago (featured here) and the Primavera Sound Festival in Barcelona (featured in an earlier post).
In 2011, Real Estate signed with the Domino Recording Company. After initial recording sessions and prior to signing the deal, the band parted ways with Duguay, not wanting to be legally-bound to the drummer due to his unreliability. Subsequently, the second album, Days, features one song with Duguay, “Out of Tune,” while the rest of the drum tracks were performed by Courtney, Mondanile and Samuel Franklin. For live shows, the band recruited drummer Jackson Pollis, formerly of Tiny Masters of Today, and keyboardist Jonah Maurer, a friend of Mondanile’s at Buxton boarding school in Massachusetts.
The group issued Days, on October 18, 2011. The album received positive reviews, including a rating of 77/100 on Metacritic and 8.7 on Pitchfork. Later that year, The Fader featured Real Estate on the cover of Issue No. 76. 2012 saw the band perform at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in Indio, California and the Pitchfork Music Festival in Chicago. From mid-2012 and throughout 2013, Real Estate shows would feature the band playing new material, some of which would eventually be included in their third album.
A single “Talking Backwards”, was released in early 2014, followed by Real Estate’s third album, Atlas. The album was written by Courtney, Mondanile, Bleeker and Pollis, with Maurer having moved on to join Titus Andronicus. Shortly before recording of the album commenced, the band decided to add keyboard parts that were more advanced than they were capable of themselves, and so they recruited Matt Kallman, formerly of Girls.
The band released its sixth studio album, Daniel, on February 23, 2024. The album was produced by Daniel Tashian, and was the band’s first to feature drummer Sammi Niss. The following year, the band released The Wee Small Hours: B-Sides and Other Detritus 2011-2025, a collection of b-sides and rarities.
On July 14, 2025, Real Estate announced a “the eleven year and seven month anniversary tour” of Atlas which was scheduled to begin on September 10. On August 23 guitarist Julian Lynch announced his departure from Real Estate with his last shows being the band’s upcoming dates on Tennis’s farewell tour prior to the Atlas anniversary tour. For the Atlas anniversary tour, the band recruited James Richardson to replace Lynch on guitar.
Okay – that’s Real Estate in a nutshell (thanks Wikipedia!) – hit Play and get ready for the weekend. It’s inevitable – it’s coming.
