Neutral Milk Hotel @ Shepherd's Bush Empire, London
Stuart Hall would've loved this: It's a Musical Knockout as the big
man with the beard plays the tuba and the trumpet in a revolving brass
section before stumbling across the stage, avoiding the chap leaping
between the singing saw and the bass guitar and ducking under the
flying drumsticks to get to the mini saxaphone and join in with the
next song as 15 new band members run on from the opposite
side. Calling it organised chaos would be unkind, but this is
considerably looser than the balanced noise of the records. Jeff
Mangum is the leader, thrashing away on his semi-acoustic and carrying
the tunes with his psychedelirium lyrics while melody comes from the
occasional keyboard or bowed saw. The result is like the Beach Boys
tackling Brian Wilson's neuroses with copious quantities of narcotics
and a ferret in their underpants.
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