Beauty (album)

Beauty is a tape cassette of music released by Jeff Mangum under the Neutral Milk Hotel name in 1992. Like Invent Yourself a Shortcake, this tape was not intended for wide distribution, instead copies were likely to have been circulated amongst Jeff's friends, which is typical of many early Elephant 6-related 'albums' (there are similar early recordings by bands who would later become Marbles, The Olivia Tremor Control, The Sunshine Fix and Chocolate U.S.A. among others). The first five tracks of the tape are acoustic recordings, and feature Engine, which would later find official release on the Holland, 1945 7", and Gardenhead/Leave Me Alone, which in a faster mix would feature on On Avery Island, as well as the live favourite Sailing Through. The second half of the tape is recorded on various occasions, and three of the five tracks (Noisy Racket, Conversation With Will Cullen Hart, Hypnotic Sounds) snippets of noise or conversation (incidentally, Hypnotic Sounds would later appear on Demo 2 and the Orange Twin re-issue of the Everything Is single as Aunt Eggma Blowtorch, minus a minute-long introductory jam). The other two are full band efforts. Someone Is Waiting, a noisy feedback-drenched drone, later appeared on On Avery Island, whilst Bucket, one of the first songs the band recorded in a full recording studio (which Mangum was not entirely happy with, claiming it to be "unfinished" [1]) was played live on several occasions, and featured on 'Periscope: Another Yoyo Compilation' in the same format. Like all of the early tapes, Beauty is relatively easy to find on the internet.

Track listing

1. Engine – 4:22
2. Circle of Friends – 3:28
3. Wishful Eyes – 6:00
4. Gardenhead / Leave Me Alone – 5:47
5. Sailing Through – 4:36
6. Bucket – 3:10
7. Noisy Racket – 3:55
8. Conversation with Will Cullen Hart – 6:15
9. Someone Is Waiting – 1:45
10. Hypnotic Sounds – 6:13

Note: track 8 is commonly listed as "Conversation with Robert Schneider," but is actually between Jeff Mangum and Will Cullen Hart of The Olivia Tremor Control and The Circulatory System.

External links

• Neutral Milk Hotel discography