Jeff Mangum: when an artist flees from fame to study Bulgarian folk music
When you reel off a list of the all-time most influential albums, you’re greeted with an alumnus of well-known names whose faces grin back at you in monster billboards on the road through musical history. But as you drive on past Paul McCartney’s grin and Bob Dylan’s gaze, you might see the name Neutral Milk Hotel and mistake it for a dairy-based diner in the depths of Americana.
Beginning as Jeff Mangum’s solo project, Neutral Milk Hotel made their name in 1980s Louisiana as a band known for their experimental take on lo-fi rock. After releasing his debut studio record, On Avery Island, Mangum recruited Julian Koster, Scott Spillane, Jeremy Barnes, and his long-time friend and producer Robert Schneider to the mix for their critically acclaimed In the Aeroplane Over the Sea.
While it swerved the spotlight of critical acclaim, it quietly became a cult classic and endeared itself to the hearts of fans. As they hit the road to tour the sleeper-hit indie record, the already dedicated fan base were treated to raucous and unpredictable live shows, the kind that widen the eyes of fans who are already harbouring stirring feelings of adoration for their music and are waiting for a spark to ignite obsession.
Mangum’s collaborator from the Elephant Six Collective, Ben Crum, recalled their chaotic reputation, stating, “It was definitely dangerous. There often seemed to be a very real chance that someone, probably Julian, would get hurt. Jeff was always doing things like picking him up and throwing him into the drums… The band members often could not afford lodgings and sometimes asked people in the audience if they could spend the night at their house, not realising the homeowner was, in fact, terrified of them.”
It was a foot-to-the-floor approach to what would become a very fleeting career for the band, and you can’t help but feel it contributed to the existential question of Mangum that eventually led to his departure.
Mangum was clearly at odds with his authentic pursuit of art and with growing press interest and, in particular, how his simple exploration of nuanced art gave him the title of ‘Salinger of rock’, a reductive and pigeon-holing take of lead singers who wished to paint outside the lines. So, after the band’s split in 1998, Mangum indulged in what had clearly become a journey of artistic passion and left America for the twice-a-decade Koprivshtitsa folk-music festival in Bulgaria, an event that Macha lead singer Josh McKay had touted to Mangum.
He became endeared with the starkly different stylistic approach to live music, centred around performance styles rooted in the nose and the throat, defying the realism of lyrical delivery and instead delivering something innately soulful. Mangum became deeply inspired by their performances and allowed it to inspire his Orange Twin Field Works: Volume I collection.
“It was intense,” McKay recalled. “Because this isn’t just like a flat surface where you can see each stage extending down the end of the range. It’s up and down and sideways. He and I would literally pass each other in a sprint to get over to something we heard bouncing off the side of one hill over there, hence the tone of the recording that he put out, sort of this mad barrage of sound.”
Such a transcendental experience left Mangum feeling somewhat creatively and socially isolated upon his return to America. While In the Aeroplane Over the Sea is a fitting way to bookend a career arc of lightning in a bottle influence, it’s a shame fans never got to hear a world where Bulgarian folk and Neutral Milk Hotel collided.
