On February 24, Merge Records unveils The Collected Works of Neutral Milk Hotel, reissuing a prior vinyl boxset that was assembled and self-released by Jeff Mangum on Neutral Milk Hotel Records back in 2011. Along with the outfit’s two celebrated studio albums, On Avery Island and In an Aeroplane Over the Sea, the set includes Live at Jittery Joes as a picture disc, two 10-inch EPs, three 7-inch discs, and two posters. Altogether, it’s an exquisitely designed one-stop-shop annotating a defining act of the Indie Era.
In 1994 Neutral Milk Hotel released “Everything Is” as either a 7-inch (two songs) or a CDEP (three songs), the set marking Jeff Mangum’s commercial (that is, non-demo) debut. For The Collected Works, as on the self-released box set prior, “Everything Is” gets expanded to a 7-song 10-inch. First album On Avery Island followed in 1995 (issued as a 2LP in Merge’s edition of the box set), its contents firmly planted inside the realms of indie rock, the disc well-received overall while not generating too much in the way of hubbub, as I recall.
That might read like modest beginnings, and that’s not wrong, but if Neutral Milk Hotel had closed up shop after On Avery Island’s release, which is to say, prior to the emergence of the group’s consensus highpoint In an Aeroplane Over the Sea, they would still be very much worth discussing, especially in connection to the lo-fi and psych-folk wings of the ’90s indie superstructure.
Bluntly, my assessment of Aeroplane as NMH’s consensus highpoint rather than an agreed upon masterpiece is due to its divisiveness as a record, and I’m not talking about the anti-hipster sentiment that began swirling around the album in the wake of its slow-blooming cult stature. No, Aeroplane is just a spectacularly weird experience that’s as likely to inspire fidgets in a listener as rapt attention and adulation.
But do I rate Aeroplane as a masterpiece? Oh yes, and one of best albums of its year and decade, refreshing at the time of release in how its approach rekindled the surrealism at psychedelia’s root (often obscured by the predominance of codified moves) and an enduring achievement partly through its inspired, lightning in a bottle performances. I’ve chewed the fat with many NMH fans over the years, and I’ve yet to meet one who rates On Avery Island higher than In an Aeroplane Over the Sea.
But Aeroplane’s sustained worthiness also derives from a relationship to musical happenings punk, college rock, and early indie in nature. While there has been no shortage of observations regarding the difficulty of drawing easy comparisons to the work of Mangum and company (that’d be Julian Koster, Jeremy Barnes, and Scott Spillane, plus crucial input from Robert Schneider of The Apples In Stereo and the Elephant 6 collective), NMH’s oeuvre is not without precedent.
A list of influences and predecessors (those who laid a path for NMH to follow) includes (beyond the typical ’60s suspects) the cited inspiration of New Zealand duo Tall Dwarfs, but less obviously, Galaxie 500, Rites of Spring, Hüsker Dü, Beat Happening, and Violent Femmes. These comparisons share an often unrestrained emotionalism, a quality that’s extant throughout the work of NMH and particularly felt across In an Aeroplane Over the Sea.
Mangum’s contemporaries include Bright Eyes, Beirut, Elliot Smith, and the late Vic Chesnutt, but NMH’s emotional purge stands apart through its literary-cinematic dreamlike imagery, a thrust that’s highly personal without revolving around standard day-to-day personal subject matter; even amongst the Elephant 6 crew, Neutral Milk Hotel’s work is distinct.
Aeroplane’s stature grew over time, and yet the record still proved a hard act to follow. In fact, Mangum never really did come up with a follow-up, as the “Ferris Wheel on Fire” 10-inch, originally released in 2011 in the first edition of this box, holds finished versions of songs written between 1992-’95, while the “You’ve Passed” b/w “Where You’ll Find Me Now” 7-inch features reworked tunes from On Avery Island. Live at Jittery Joe’s is a fascinating solo Mangum set from ’97 that’s loaded with early versions of Aeroplane cuts and a little too much of a crying baby.
The nearest Mangum came to following up Aeroplane is the song “Little Birds,” with its 1998 studio demo recorded with Schneider paired on a 7-inch with a live version from NMH’s 2014 reunion tour. Instead of a follow-up, that tour (gathering together the four main contributors), along with the contents of “Ferris Wheel on Fire,” did provide a sense of closure after a decade and a half of growing cult fandom.
In retrospect, On Avery Island’s modest success, along with the company they were keeping, proved crucial to Aeroplane’s fruition, as outside expectations for a second album were sensible and “hands off,” which in turn allowed NMH’s creativity to run rampant from inside a brief window of opportunity. Listening to Aeroplane today, one of its undiminished facets is how its very existence resonates like a big stroke of luck.
While less ragged and raw, NMH’s 21st century addendum remains true to the spirit of the core studio material and makes The Collected Works of Neutral Milk Hotel more than a gift for completists. For fans lacking vinyl editions of the group’s discography, this set is an essential purchase.
GRADED ON A CURVE:
A
