Underground Sound - Neutral Milk Hotel's In The Aeroplane Over The Sea

By Jim Feighan
Senior Staff Writer
February 21, 2007

There are few albums that you can keep coming back to, a fresh experience every time you reach the end of the record. You can recall the first listen, your initial interpretations of the lyrics, your desire to let friends know what you’ve just heard. Since hearing In The Aeroplane Over The Sea, I’ve been both blessed and cursed by this anomaly of independent music—How is this so rudimentarily catchy, and why isn’t anyone else making music like this?

Spanning about seven years under the moniker of Neutral Milk Hotel, Jeff Mangum (founder, lead singer, madcap virtuoso) has hid under the radar, peeking his head out when absolutely necessary. Throughout the early ’90s, he and a few friends traveled throughout America, crashing at fellow indie musicians’ houses, sleeping in closets and surviving on movie theater popcorn. During this time, Mangum recorded wherever he could, with the closest instruments at his disposal. In the mid ’90s, the friends deemed themselves the Elephant Six Collective, a curious record label that released their friend’s experimental pop music.

After releasing On Avery Island, Neutral Milk Hotel’s first studio album in 1996, Mangum and the band buckled down and began working on a concept album that would be loosely based on the life of Anne Frank, a recognized Holocaust victim whose diary has been published and circulated world-wide. Two years in the making, In The Aeroplane Over The Sea was released in America in February 1998, and while the accolades and critical acclaim weren’t immediate, the album has grown to expansive proportions throughout the past nine years. Behind acoustic guitar for the majority of tracks, Mangum howls intimate tales of the Communist daughter, the Two-Headed Boy, the King of Carrot Flowers and other eccentric characters that dwell In The Aeroplane Over The Sea.

It’s the overlooked components of the album that make it become so personal and memorable. Firstly, Mangum’s raw, abstract lyrics wonderfully depict the nihilistic world where these hopeless characters exist: “And only weeks before the guns all came and rained on everyone; now she’s a little boy in Spain playing pianos filled with flames.”

Neutral Milk Hotel’s other secret weapon is their ability to play an endless assortment of bizarre yet euphonious instruments. In The Aeroplane… features the bowed banjo, singing saw, Uilleann Pipes, and something called a zanzithophone. Together with Mangum’s coarse, trademark vocals, the 11 songs conglomerate into 40 minutes of dark and inspiring melodies.

After In The Aeroplane… was released, the band members began collaborating with different bands on the Elephant Six Label, and while there never was an official breakup, it doesn’t seem likely that we will get more material from the band. As of late, the elusive Jeff Mangum has been rumored to have taken an interest in the biology of snails, and has been seen recording the ocean for different sound experiments. Fortunately, in June 2006, Mangum posted on an Elephant Six messageboard, discussing the possibilities of releasing new music. All fans can do is pray that creativity and inspiration prompt Mangum to treat fans to another glimpse inside the mind of one of indie rock’s most interesting figures.

In The Aeroplane Over The Sea has reached a cult status from music fans and critics alike, and through time, the album will only inspire more musicians to write outside of the box. If you’re tired of listening to the same 20 songs played on the radio and MTV, I insist that you treat yourself to something fresh and innovative.

feighanj1@lasalle.edu