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Underground > Radio & Music >

The cult of Neutral Milk Hotel..

11:11 / 09.01.04

I love Neutral Milk Hotel so much I can barely express it.. 'On Avery Island' and 'In an Aeroplane Over the Sea' are both sailing pretty high in my list of favourite records ever, and although I've listened to them both to death, they still get better with every new listen.. I won't even bother to try and describe why this is the case.. If you've heard these albums, you'll know why.. they just sound like *exactly* the kind of music I've always wanted to make, made way, way better than I could ever make it.. psychedelic, punky, folky, totally weird yet completely beautiful, songs that are utterly spaced out and surreal but at the same time unbearable emotional.. and, well, I could go on for pages about different individual songs.. so many of them strike a chord with me..

But anyway, I've just discovered that in addition to those two albums, they've done at least two other album length recordings and various other assorted tracks, and I'm frantically downloading as many as I can off Soulseek.. hence the inspiration for starting this thread..

I've never thought of Neutral Milk Hotel as being a very popular band - I don't remember ever reading anything about them, nobody I know IRL knows anything about them and I can't recall ever seeing their records in any shops (I had to order them online), but judging my the huge number of mp3s available on Soulseek they seem to have a pretty substantial cult following and, well, rightly so, their music is just singularly incredible..

SO, er, am I on my own here? Who else likes Neutral Milk Hotel? Does anybody know if Jeff Mangum has been up to anything in the years since NMH did their records? Beyond the music, I don't actually know much about him / them..

uncle retrospective

12:22 / 09.01.04

Em, I've never heard of them but I'm downloading some of it now.
Hope it's good.

Matthew Fluxington

13:44 / 09.01.04

I like NMH alright, but I'm not a huge fan of theirs aside from deeply loving "The King Of Carrot Flowers Parts 1-3."

I suppose that Mangum's following is mostly American. In indie circles, Mangum obsessives are fairly ubiquitous these days.

From what I've been told (some of which by people who know him), Jeff isn't the sanest guy in the world. He's had a few nervous breakdowns, and he's apparently decided to stop recording music for the indefinite future. He did a series of radio shows on WFMU in 2002 which are archived in realaudio here. It was probably the most difficult-to-listen-to show on the entire station at the time (which is quite an accomplishment). He's really into field recordings, and did crazy stuff like play a sustained chord for an hour or two straight on the air.

Anyway, don't expect any new material for Jeff for some time. Or maybe ever.

17:02 / 09.01.04

hmm.. that figures.

From his music I'd kind of expected him to fit into the Syd Barrett 'dangerously unbalanced genius' sort of mold.. something about the way he writes songs that in anyone else's hands would sound like silly whimsical psyche-pop and sings them like his heart's split in two and his head's about to explode..

Oh and recommended tracks to download for anyone following Uncle Retrospective's example who doesn't want to end up with a bunch of random noise or weird scratchy demos:
"Song Against Sex", "Gardenhead (Leave Me Alone)", "King of Carrot Flowers Part One", "Naomi", "Two Headed Boy", "Holland 1945", "Communist Daughter"

Locust No longer

18:31 / 10.01.04

I stumbled onto Neutral Milk Hotel about four or five years ago and Jeff Magnum's odd proclivity towards hands in ribs metaphors, and pseudo-Jesus worship was automatically appealing. Unfortunately, I got the hipsters of my small town into it accidentaly, and it got promptly overplayed. I haven't been able to listen to his stuff for a while now. Although I do still appreciate his craft and oddity. I always wanted to pick up the live cd of one of his performances a couple years ago, but haven't. It brings about strange memories I'm not sure I want to relive. But, I realize that's a testament to how affecting his music is.

at the scarwash

19:55 / 11.01.04

It always kinda surprised me that no one knew about NMH, but then, I was living in Louisiana at the time that On Avery Island came out (about 45 minutes from Avery Island to be exact), and they're originally from Ruston. They are indeed massively super good. If you like them, you should check out the rest of the Elephant 6 bands, all members of a recording/equipment/musicianship pool that centered around Mangum in Athens, GA. Of those lot, I like Olivia Tremor Control the most, closely followed by thge amazing Elf Power.

23:26 / 11.01.04

one of the two people i live with loves 'em, used to listen to that two-headed boy song all the time