The work of Louisiana singer-songwriter Jeff Magnan, the heart and soul of Neutral Milk Hotel, was significant, but brief. It is gathered here for the first time in a box, and finally presented on the platforms of streaming. From his beginnings at the turn of the 1990s, the elusive Magnan announces the next two decades of American indie rock. The rich pen, rimbaldian at times, never so opaque in its phantasmagoric stories that the fan cannot identify with it, the psychedelic rock song, which we will also qualify as lo fi but which, in reality, is more studied than it seems, the dangerous balance between noises, melodies and sonic explosions, everything is there announced, then quoted by the descendants, from Sufjan Stevens to Arcade Fire, up to Big Thief today. The initiate will discover the magnificent In the Airplane Over the Sea (1998), the band’s second and final studio album, a classic of new American rock equal to the best of Pavement and Sebadoh. The fan will listen to it again with renewed pleasure.
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