Neutral Milk Hotel: In An Aeroplane Over The Scene (1998)-Ethan Smith
Neutral Milk Hotel: In the Aeroplane Over the Sea (1998)
By Ethan Smith
There’s so much to say about this album. There’s the historical reference, all the artists it has influenced, the beautiful lyrical landscapes that are painted throughout the album, the simple yet inventive and very powerful music. All of it comes down to the genius of one man: Jeff Mangum, now noted indie god and elephant six recluse. Jeff Mangum crafted one of the greatest albums ever and based it around his musician friends (including Beirut/Bright Eyes/etc man Jeremy Barnes and Of Montreal, Olivia Tremor Control and Elf Power musician Scott Spillane) and reoccurring dreams he’d had that were centered around a Jewish family during World War II.
This album seriously flies by when you listen to it and when I first heard it I’d had an experience unlike anything I’d ever had before. I’d put it on repeat (not uncommon when I hear an album I love) and three months later I was still playing it very regularly; during the first month it was daily (that’s uncommon.) I was blown away. It was like stuff I’d heard before (bands NMH had actually influenced) but so much better. All those other artists paled in comparison to this album. Magnum illustrated some of the must beautiful thoughts and wrote some of the most breathtaking lyrics ever. Including my favorite verse in music history: "And one day we will die / And our ashes will fly / From the Aeroplane over the sea /But for now we are young / Let us lay in the sun / And count every beautiful thing we can see.” This album flows like none other. Each track blends into the next perfectly. And while normally I find interludes boring the horn instrumentals here just seem so right placed between Jeff’s driving songs like “Holland”, “1945”. Not to mention his intimate and surreal stuff like “Two Headed Boy Part II”. This really is an album like none other; emotive with a level of depth and ideology behind it that seems the furthest thing from pompous or pretentious. It seems very honest and very real.
This album is one of few releases I would truly call timeless. It sounds like it could have been recorded today, yesterday or sixty-three years ago (in terms of the writing) but in reality it was recorded a month and ten years ago. William Faulkner once said, "The aim of every artist is to arrest motion, which is life, by artificial means and hold it fixed so that a hundred years later, when a stranger looks at it, it moves again since it is life." And I think with this album Jeff Mangum achieved that better than most.
Copyright C. 2008 Ethan Smith