Latest Release
- 24 FEB 2023
- 8 Songs
- In the Aeroplane Over the Sea · 1998
- In the Aeroplane Over the Sea · 1998
- On Avery Island · 1996
- On Avery Island · 1996
- On Avery Island · 1996
- Oh, Merge · 1999
- Ferris Wheel on Fire · 2023
- On Avery Island · 1996
- Ferris Wheel on Fire · 2023
- On Avery Island · 1996
Essential Albums
- Jeff Mangum’s second album as Neutral Milk Hotel is a masterpiece. Inspired by a reading of the Anne Frank story, and with the help from the Elephant Six recording collective (Apples in Stereo and Olivia Tremor Control), In the Aeroplane Over the Sea is a personal meditation on the rich joys of life and the tragedy of death. Triumphantly martial brass arrangements, warbly musical saw and sweet piano augment the rough buzz of Mangum’s basic acoustic guitar strum, but it’s his glorious, wailing voice that soars over all of it as the album progresses seamlessly from big rock songs (“Holland, 1945”, “Ghost”) and achingly earnest mid-tempo numbers (“King of Carrot Flowers Part 1”) to a brass-led dirge (“The Fool”) reminiscent of the jazz funeral that march through the streets of Mangum’s native Louisiana. To hear this album once is to love it forever.
Artist Playlists
- Taking inventory of the ingredients that go into indie rock's most eclectic recipe.
More To Hear
- On Death Cab For Cutie, Neutral Milk Hotel, and Bloc Party.
About Neutral Milk Hotel
Blending folk, psychedelia and orchestral rock with creative yet lo-fi production, Neutral Milk Hotel released two full-length albums in the ’90s and became a 21st-century cult phenomenon. Bandleader Jeff Mangum began Neutral Milk Hotel as a solo project when he was a teenager in Ruston, Louisiana, and he and a few local friends eventually formed the musical collective Elephant 6. Mangum moved around, including a stint in Athens, Georgia—where some E6 associates had relocated—and released the first Neutral Milk Hotel single, “Everything Is”, while living in Seattle in 1993. In 1995, he and his friend and collaborator Robert Schneider recorded On Avery Island, and it became a critical hit after its 1996 release. In the Aeroplane Over the Sea, a high-concept record that combined grandly static-covered rock with intimate folk, followed two years later. Neutral Milk Hotel went on hiatus soon afterward, but Aeroplane in particular developed a fervent fandom, and Mangum spearheaded a reunion tour in 2013 that ended in 2015.
- ORIGIN
- Ruston, LA, United States
- FORMED
- 1989
- GENRE
- Rock