By Donzig
There was, in the mid-to-late Nineties, a glut of slickly-produced "alternative" bands on the airwaves, in music videos and on covers of music magazines. In the wake of Nirvana's breakthrough Nevermind (1991), many indie label acts were signed to eager major labels and put out albums with a more mainstream sound than previous releases. (Nevermind itself fits this pattern, as a matter of fact, and may have provided the model for others.) The Lollapalozza Tour, originally a 1991 farewell tour for Jane's Addiction, soon became a lucrative annual event, attracting large crowds and huge corporate sponsors. The commercialization of independent music was especially galling for those of us in the Washington, D.C. area: Our hometown station WHFS was locally owned and truly free-form in the Seventies and Eighties, but by this time had been bought out and helped pioneer the Alternative Rock radio format that has since become widespread. (In the days before streaming and music blogs, terrestrial radio was an important source of new music for record and CD buyers.)
But all was not lost, for many indie bands couldn't, wouldn't, or simply didn't move closer to the mainstream. Among these are the groups of the Elephant 6 Collective, a musical cooperative formed in the mid-Nineties by like-minded friends who formed their own groups while playing together on records and in concert. They shared not so much a similar sound but a common sensibility of independence and creativity. Some of the acts included under this venture are Elf Power, The Olivia Tremor Control, The Apples In Stereo (my favourite and the most accessible) as well as the subject of today's review: Neutral Milk Hotel.
The brainchild of Jeff Mangum, NMH put out an EP and two full length LPs in its short lifetime, all in different styles, as well as a few odd singles. All this material, a live album and a few outtakes and demos are now collected again for reissue (this collection was previously issued independently in a small run by Mangum on his own label) as The Collected Works of Neutral Milk Hotel, out today on Merge Records.
The Everything Is EP from 1995 introduces the Neutral Milk Hotel sound in a primitive, DIY mode, one much more common now than at the time. The band's full-length debut, On Avery Island (1996), exudes a great deal more power and volume. From the opening "Song Against Sex", with its horn section to the closer, the 13-minute psych/drone "Pree-Sisters Swallowing A Donkey's Eye, this album is a decidedly lo-fi affair with a big sound.
The band's final album, In The Aeroplane Over The Sea from 1998, was their most critically acclaimed and the one I already owned before this review. On this record, the band dials down the guitar bombast a notch or two, featuring more acoustic guitar. Here Mangum's inscrutable lyrics are more apparent, adding to the idiosyncratic character of this work.
An intimate 1997 solo acoustic show, recorded between the two full-length albums and first released in 2001, is also included. One gets the impression listening to these tracks that perhaps Jeff Mangum, despite all the bells, whistles, and production on his other records, may be a whimsical folk singer at heart.
Over the course of these releases, Mangum and company displayed various disparate elements: odd arrangments and song titles reminiscent of Frank Zappa ("Aunt Eggma Blowtorch", "King of Carrot Flowers", the aforementioned "Pree-Sisters..."); quirky lyrics and a vocal style not unlike The Dead Milkmen; an earnest singer-songwriter vibe; and at times, a driving guitar sounds perhaps inspired by his love for The Minutemen. Jeff Mangum is a restless creative spirit not easily categorized and decidely not mass-marketable. According to Merge Records he never made a Neutral Milk Hotel music video, which tells us he probably didn't even try for mainstream success.
The generous and seemingly complete The Collected Works of Neutral Milk Hotel is out today on Merge Records.
[Photo: Merge Records]