SOUNDTRACK: NEUTRAL MILK HOTEL-In the Aeroplane Over the Sea (1998).
I had always put off getting into Neutral Milk Hotel. They were just another one of those Elephant 6 bands, and there were so many bands and splinter-bands and solo bands that I had to draw the line somewhere. And Neutral Milk Hotel were on the other side of it. I hadn’t even heard them, I just decided I couldn’t listen to them.
About four months ago, I heard a piece on NPR about a high school putting on a musical based on this album. They played bits and pieces of the disc and I was totally blown away. The play is somehow connected to the Anne Frank story (as the album apparently is, too, although I haven’t been able to figure that out from the lyrics at all).
It also turns out that my friend Jarrett had put “Two-Headed Boy” on a sampler disc for me, so I already DID know some of the disc.
Make no mistake, this is an unusual disc: from the bizarre cover, to the bizarre song titles (“The King of Carrot Flowers”). And, most notably, to the instrumentation. Sure it starts out simply enough with some acoustic guitars, but it eventually adds everything from flugelhorn (a recent safe word on How I Met Your Mother)to euphonium to zanzithophone(!) to what I thought was a theremin, but which turns out to be a singing saw (even cooler!).
“The King of Carrot Flowers Pts 2 – 3” begins with the very earnest “I love you, Jesus Christ.” It eventually morphs into the rollicking Pt 3, with the repeated effort of “I would [x] until I learn to [x]” It’s frankly an amazing trilogy to open the disc.
The title track and “Two-Headed Boy” continue this fascinating orchestral folk with incredible catchiness and what can only be described as supremely earnest singing. At times, the singing almost makes one uncomfortable for how naked it sounds.
“The Fool” allows for some interesting marching band type instrumentation, but it is followed by even more earnest singing in “Holland, 1945” a ramshackle song that feels like it is trying to race itself to the end. And then there’s “Oh Comely” a simple guitar ballad that grows and shrinks for 8 minutes of raw, lyric bending. Eventually it adds some horns as Magnum sings “we know who our enemies arrrrrrrrrre.”
The whole disc has a sound of being recorded too close to the microphone…with many many sounds crackling into distortion. And while it does have a feeling of cheapness, it really has more of a feeling of urgency…they couldn’t wait to get these songs out, and damn the recording levels (the guitars on “Ghost” are almost outrageously too loud, even though they are not louder than anything else in the song).
The disc ends with the fun, keyboard and uilleann pipe fueled “The Penny Arcade in Calirfornia” a wonderful instrumental that reprises some of the musical lines from other songs. And then comes “Two Headed Boy, Pt 2” which doesn’t really reprise the original song. Rather, it is a multi-versed song in which Magnum barely pauses for breath trying to get the lengthy verses (with no evident chorus) out. It ends with an actual reprise of “Two Headed Boy” and fades out.
It’s a fantastic disc. Simply fantastic.
Neutral Milk Hotel has basically been on hiatus since this record, so it’s not hard to catch up with their output (2 full lengths and an EP). It’s just a shame if you waited as long as I did to do it.
[READ: September 18, 2009] “Hail the Returning Dragon, Clothed in New Fire”
When Infinite Jest came out there was a lot of discussion of its being “ironic.” But generally, it is well established at this point (just look at virtually any post on Infinite Summer) about how un-ironic the book is. In fact, it rather eschews irony. (I’m not going to detail why, I promise).
This essay, if nothing else, should hammer home the idea that DFW had very little tolerance for irony (even despite the nature of this book, the magazine it comes from, and some of the other ironic pieces in it). Continue Reading »
Okay, so this magazine doesn’t really count. 
SOUNDTRACK: SONIC YOUTH-“Rather Ripped” (2006).
When Rather Ripped came out, I was really excited by it. It rocked heavy, it was catchy and it featured a lot of Kim. I listened to it all the time, and would have said it was my favorite SY disc of this era. However, listening to Sonic Nurse reminded me how much I liked that one too, so I’m unclear now which one I like better.
SOUNDTRACK: EXPLOSIONS IN THE SKY-The Earth is Not a Cold Dead Place (2003).
Explosions in the Sky play beautiful, lengthy almost cinematic instrumentals. They are primarily a guitar-drum band, (but they do add bass from time to time).
I am very excited about Douglas Coupland’s new book Generation A. It’s a sequel to his first book, Generation X, which I loved, and reviews have been quite positive.
SOUNDTRACK: SONIC YOUTH-Sonic Nurse (2004).
SOUNDTRACK: SONIC YOUTH-Murray Street (2002).
After NYC Ghosts and Flowers, I put off getting this disc. I was getting a little bored by the meandering, somewhat glacial pace of the last two discs, and figured that was the trend they’d be continuing (especially since there are only seven songs on here!).
SOUNDTRACK: REGINA SPEKTOR-Far (2009).
Regina Spektor has reaffirmed my faith in female singers. Back in the 1990s, during the height of Lilith Fair craze, there was an embarrassment of cool, hip, interesting women singers releasing discs. Since then some have sold out (Liz Phair), some have gone away (Shirley Manson), and some have just, well, matured (Tori Amos). Maturation is a fine thing, but when you are known for doing interesting things, by the time you get to doing standard piano ballads, well, yes, we all mature, but we don’t all lose our quirkiness, right?
SOUNDTRACK: BEN FOLDS-Stems and Seeds (2009).
I enjoyed Way to Normal, although not as much as previous Ben Folds CDs. I was listening to 
I Just Read About That... 