Neutral Milk Hotel
By All Music Guide
By All Music Guide
Neutral Milk Hotel first took shape in 1989 as a noise rock trio that played its debut gig at a local laundromat; a year later, Mangum, Hart, and Doss moved to Athens, GA, to form the group Cranberry Life Cycle, which later became Synthetic Flying Machine (and ultimately the Olivia Tremor Control) after Mangums departure. In 1993, he and Schneider relocated to Denver, CO, where Schneider soon founded the Apples (in stereo). Eventually, Mangum gravitated to New York and resumed recording under the Neutral Milk Hotel aegis. After a series of singles and privately released cassettes, including Invent Yourself a Shortcake, Beauty, and Hype City, Mangum travelled back to Denver to record the critically acclaimed 1996 album On Avery Island on Schneiders four-track machine; in the the spring of 1997 he again returned to Colorado to begin work on the follow-up, the brilliant In the Aeroplane Over the Sea.
