Neutral Milk Hotel’s album In the Aeroplane Over the Sea is one of my favorite albums of all time. It’s not the type of record you can, or should, listen to all the time. It’s the one you dust off every few months, listen to end-to-end, and put back on the shelf. It is an abstract, intangible an utterly arresting piece of music.
Back in the day, I had a thing for all of the Elephant 6 bands (Olivia Tremor Control, The Apples, Of Montreal, etc.). I saw each band on several occasions, and each was a memorable event. The finest show of the bunch was Neutral Milk in a little dive bar in Philly in the middel of the afternoon on a Tuesday. I’ll never be sure how that show came to be, or how I came to be there, but it was phenomenol. At that time, the band was at least seven or eight strong. Horns, guitars, even someone playing the singing saw. All of this, packed onto the tiniest stage you’ve ever seen.
Anyway…the reason for this post. Jeff Mangum, the many who IS Neutral Milk Hotel, hasn’t released a follow-up to his masterpiece 1998 album. This Slate magazine article attempts to emplain the man and myth. They succeed, in whatever limited degree they could. Good article. Amazing album.
February 26, 2008, 5:39pm
