Neutral Milk Hotel - On the Aeroplane Over the Sea

It's always sad when i don't bring home an instrument to bang around from a trip to the big city, but i did splurge and buy almost a week's worth of albums to talk about (4 records and 2 CDs). I don't know where to start...

... so Neutral Milk Hotel, i guess. I have no idea what sparked the renewed interest in their second album 10 years ago, and i won't pretend that i knew about it before a couple years ago, but both their studio albums were just sitting at Barnes & Noble. Now they are in my basement.

Every youtube music persona has some grandiose narrative to tell about this cult underground classic, i won't be able to add much of anything other than to tell you that the instant you hear Jeff Magnum sing "two headed boy" it will be permanently lodged in your frontal cortex. Anywho, spin spin spin the black circle (that's a Pearl Jam reference, if you're keeping score).

In the Aeroplane Over the Sea is 32 years and 12 days old as i write this, but it's surprisingly timeless. Nobody actually understands it, and that seems perfectly fine. Let's have a rum and coke and just try to describe it.

It's lo-fi experimental surrealist hipster folk. It's roundabout 20 years ahead of it's time. That's long enough for people like me to hear Mumford & Sons and Of Monsters and Men come onto the scene and say "i've heard this before, by better crazy people." That's not fair, i like Of Monsters and Men. I think i mentioned Olfar's 2011 album Harbour last year as well, but even that's 13 years later than Neutral Milk Hotel. Enough contextualizing; the music bottle, the music.

This is late 90s crazy guy at the coffee house music, no wonder Magnum had a nervous breakdown after it made him a comparative superstar. He's not Nick Drake, but he's not unlike Nick Drake persona wise. It's not Cake, but it has a very similar flavor, with a Smashing Pumpkins aftertaste. I've listened to this album in various formats and this vinyl is the worst in a good way. The lows are psychotically growly and fuzzed, the clipping is like a bowl-cut (completely intentional 'cause he's definitely yelling but the vocals are crystal clear).

The songs themselves are so incredibly catchy. Whether the themes are dream logic, or interpretations of Anne Frank, or fictional metaphysical mythos, or who cares, this album is fantastic. It deserves every bit of praise and more. It might have driven him over the edge to have to try to explain this insanity on stage every night, but it's gorgeous PTSD-like chaos. Go give it a listen when you have a chance. It's completely unhinged and about as raw as it gets. I'll be listening to their first album in the near future, and we can compare notes then....

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