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Neutral Milk Hotel

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Neutral Milk Hotel was a 90s American indie rock band. The band's chief lyricist and songwriter, Jeff Mangum played with a number of other musicians on the band's two full-length albums. Notable contributors to the band's oeuvre include Jeremy Barnes (drums), Scott Spillane (horns), Julian Koster (banjo/bass guitar/saw) and producer-instrumentalist Robert Schneider. Neutral Milk Hotel is a part of the Elephant Six Collective, based out of Athens, Georgia.

Contents

History

Origins

Jeff Mangum, along with his friend Will Cullen Hart and Bill Doss, was a member of the Olivia Tremor Control, appearing on their first release, the California Demise 7".

Prior to recording for friends under the NMH moniker, Mangum recorded at least one cassette under the name Milk, the only known tape was called Pygmie Barn in E Minor. This is the earliest known recordings that Mangum initiated and executed himself. There were only an estimated dozen or so copies ever made of this tape, none of which has been made public. The tracklist etc. are also unknown. This image of the sleeve artwork was contributed to the Elephant 6 website by Will Cullen Hart: http://members.cox.net/neutralmilkhotel/cov-milk.jpg

Neutral Milk Hotel began life simply as a recording project for Mangum, in the early 1990's. He produced several demo cassettes, among them 1991's Invent Yourself a Shortcake, 1992's Beauty and 1993's Hype City Soundtrack, along with two more from this period, seemingly unnamed. Although easily found on the internet, these demos capture the project at a very embryonic state: songs are played in between various sound collages and tape experiments, one of which consists only of a six minute conversation between Mangum and Hart.

During this period, Mangum was wandering the country, staying in the closets of friends, and in a state of perpetual unemployment. It was in these circumstances that the band's first formal releases took shape. Strictly speaking, however, the 'band' usually consisted of Mangum and whomever else was present at the time. This is obvious on Neutral Milk Hotel's first release, a 7" entitled Everything Is, recorded when Mangum was spending time in Seattle, Washington, released on Cher Doll Records in 1994.

On Avery Island

A full album, On Avery Island, followed, this time recorded mainly in Denver, Colorado, where Mangum was backed by Robert Schneider of the Apples in Stereo, Rick Benjamin of the Perry Weissman Three and Lisa Janssen of Secret Square. It was released by Merge Records in 1996. Despite being overshadowed by their more popular second release, On Avery Island stands on its own as a brilliant meld of folk and lo-fi indie rock. Mangum's unique vocal style and the band's quirky but playful arrangements create a carnival atmosphere of moods ranging from excitement, suspense and melodrama.

After the release of Avery Island, Neutral Milk Hotel became a fully-fledged band, as Julian Koster, Scott Spillane and Jeremy Barnes joined Mangum, the band now being based in New York. Soon after this, they moved to Athens, GA, where many of Mangum's friends had begun to settle, and the Elephant 6 recording company began to fully take shape. After this, the band went back to Denver, to record a proper follow up to On Avery Island.

In the Aeroplane Over the Sea and final show

Audio samples:
The band's second LP, In the Aeroplane Over the Sea, released in 1998, is notable as a critically acclaimed work and a widely popular recording. It is a spiritually motivated work conceptually based on the beauty to be found in the horrific fate of Anne Frank and similarly overwhelming tragedies. (Mangum has, during live performances, including the one released under the title "Live at Jittery Joes", described some of the songs off this album as based on urgent, recurring dreams he had of a Jewish family during World War II.) The album was highly praised by critics for its wildly inventive instrumentation and Mangum's provocative and impassioned lyrics. Although it met with scant response from the general public when it was released, the recording has continued to gain momentum in indie music circles and has become a cult classic, selling well over 100,000 copies according to Merge Records. However, the record along with the year of constant touring that succeeded it took its toll on Mangum. The band quite abruptly went on hiatus turning down all requests for shows, including a support slot for R.E.M., and little was heard from Mangum after that point.

However, before Neutral Milk Hotel began their indefinite hiatus, Mangum played live one final time at a house show on December 5, 1998 in Athens. The bill was shared with Elf Power, and the audience was made up almost completely of friends and bandmates. Playing solo and acoustic, Mangum opened the set with what was to be the only post-Aeroplane composition to be performed in public, "Little Birds". He explained to the audience that the song is about a boy whose body becomes filled up with minature birds that come out of the bathtub faucet and protect him from his murderous father (who has apparently already killed the main character's younger brother).

Mangum finished the rest of the evening with most of the Aeroplane songs, encouraging the audience to sing along in substitute for the horn parts. For the last several songs, Julian Kloster took his trumpet in to an adjacent room and played his parts through the wall. A recording of the show is known to exist among some fans, but has never been officially released.

Hiatus

Although all the members are still active with one another in other projects, it is unknown whether any more Neutral Milk Hotel albums will be released. There were plans to release a Neutral Milk Hotel rarities album on the Orange Twin label; its cancellation was subsequently announced in 2005 on the Orange Twin website, stating that Jeff Mangum decided against the project. Currently, it is unclear if this will ever happen.

There has, however, been some activity since Aeroplane. First, Orange Twin re-released Everything Is, complete with extra bonus tracks, as well as Live at Jittery Joe's, a bootleg recording of a show Mangum played in a coffee house in Athens in 1997. The Major Organ and the Adding Machine album, a rather secretive project released by Orange Twin in 2001 and consisting mainly of experimental musical collage, features Mangum, along with Julian Koster, Of Montreal's Kevin Barnes, Elf Power's Andrew Reiger and the Olivia Tremor Control and Circulatory System's Will Cullen Hart and Eric Harris. There was also the release of [[Orange Twin Field Works: Volume I]], Mangum's field recording of a Bulgarian folk festival, also on Orange Twin in 2001. Additionally, he plays drums on the first Circulatory System album.

Since the breakup of Neutral Milk Hotel, Jeff Mangum has only played live proper again once, under the pseudonym 'World of Wild Beards, Inc.', at the Kings Arms pub in Auckland, New Zealand, at the request of the Tall Dwarfs's Chris Knox. He has also made appearances with Elf Power, and came onstage at the first of the Olivia Tremor Control's New York shows on their 2005 reunion tours, to sing briefly. Further releases from Neutral Milk Hotel, however, are indicated to be unlikely.

The other members are all still releasing material: Julian Koster as The Music Tapes, Scott Spillane as The Gerbils and Jeremy Barnes as A Hawk & A Hacksaw, Bablicon and Marta Tennae.

In 2005, In the Aeroplane Over the Sea saw its re-release by Domino Records in the UK, in a sleeve featuring praise from, among others, Franz Ferdinand and The Arcade Fire, both very much influenced by the band. On Avery Island will be re-released in the US in October of 2006 with bonus tracks by Fire Records. Mangum has also been fairly creatively busy - following a charity auction on eBay of an acoustic guitar decorated by Mangum himself, more guitars hand-decorated by Mangum were sold via Orange Twin Records for $900 apiece. Also, a number of Mangum's original drawings, this time costing only $10 each, were sold via Neutral Milk Hotel's website.

In 2006, a message was posted on the Elephant 6 message board, purportedly from Jeff Mangum. The message suggested that Mangum would again record music and tour, though it was unclear if it would be under the Neutral Milk Hotel moniker or another one. It soon caused an enormous stir within the indie community, and news of the message appeared in Rolling Stone, Pitchfork, and Billboard. However, it was eventually discredited by Robert Schneider, frontman for Apples in Stereo and close friend of Mangum's. The perpetrator of the hoax (which convinced many sources close to Mangum) is still unknown.

Discography

Demo cassettes

Albums

Image:On avery island album cover.jpg|
On Avery Island
(Merge; CD; 1996) Image:In the aeroplane over the sea album cover copy.jpg|
In the Aeroplane Over the Sea
(Merge; CD; 1998) Image:Live At Jittery Joe's.jpg|
Live at Jittery Joe's
(Orange Twin; CD; 2001)
Billed as a Jeff Mangum record, but every song on the album, aside from a single cover, is a Neutral Milk Hotel song.

EPs and singles

Image:Everything Is (Neutral Milk Hotel).jpg|
Everything Is
(Cher Doll; EP; 1994 Fire; EP; 1995 Orange Twin; EP; 2001) Image:Holland 45 single.jpg|
Holland, 1945
(Blue Rose; 7"; 1998)

Compilation appearances

Books

  • Cooper, Kim, 33 1/3: In The Aeroplane Over The Sea (2005); [More info] about Cooper's book
  • Azerrad, Michael, Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground 1981-1991 (2002) ISBN 0316787531
  • Derogatis, Jim, Turn on Your Mind: Four Decades of Great Psychedelic Rock (2003) ISBN 0634055488

External links

The Elephant Six Collective
Main Article
Bands in the Collective
The Apples in Stereo | Beulah | Black Swan Network | Chocolate USA | Circulatory System | Dixie Blood Mustache | Dressy Bessy | Elf Power | The Essex Green | Frosted Ambassador | The Gerbils | High Water Marks | Major Organ and the Adding Machine | Marbles | The Minders | The Music Tapes | Neutral Milk Hotel | The Olivia Tremor Control | Orchestre Fantastique | Pipes You See, Pipes You Don't | Secret Square | The Sunshine Fix | ulysses | Von Hemmling
Other Noted Bands and Side Projects
American Revolution | Bablicon | Fablefactory | Great Lakes | A Hawk And A Hacksaw | Icy Demons | The Instruments | The Ladybug Transistor | The Late B.P. Helium | M Coast | Marta Tennae | Midget and Hairs | My First Keyboard | Of Montreal | Synthetic Flying Machine | Thimble Circus | Visitations
Related articles
Bill Doss | Jeff Mangum | Robert Schneider | Will Cullen Hart | Hilarie Sidney | Laura Carter | Jeremy Barnes | Jill Carnes | David Barnes | Julian Koster

 

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