Hype City Soundtrack

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Neutral Milk Hotel chronology
Hype City Soundtrack

Studio album by Neutral Milk Hotel
Released	1993
Genre	Indie Rock, Experimental
Label	Elephant 6
Beauty (1992)	Hype City Soundtrack (1993)	Demo 1 (1993)

Hype City Soundtrack is the third and final named cassette of music which has thusfar been discovered by Neutral Milk Hotel, which, at this point, was merely an outlet for Jeff Mangum's songwriting. Again, it was self-released by Mangum, for the enjoyment of himself and his friends, which was common among Elephant 6 luminaries of the time. Hype City Soundtrack is largely considered to be the most accessible of the demo tapes, being a more song-based effort, - rather than just some demos gathered in a tape - with the noise fragments and collages that featured in the earlier tapes being restricted to 'Los Angeles', a recording of Mangum attempting to get a companion to scream, as well as a few fragments of noise between songs, and 'Tea Time', which is a 6 second long fragment of what seems to be a completed song, with Mangum duetting with an unidentified female vocalist. No full version of this song has yet been found. Of the songs that remain, then, there are several songs which appear on later releases, though all of these appear on earlier tapes.

Opening the tape is "Up and Over We Go" or "Synthetic Flying Machine", which would later become "The King of Carrot Flowers Pt. Three" from In the Aeroplane Over the Sea, as well as appearing on the Cher Doll 7" compilation The Amazing Phantom Third Channel, though the version that appears on the earlier Invent Yourself a Shortcake is used. "Tuesday Moon" was also found on Invent Yourself a Shortcake, though it was the version from this tape which was used as a bonus track in the Orange Twin re-release of the Everything Is single minus a minute-long instrumental section at the end. "Gardenhead / Leave Me Alone" would later appear on the first full Neutral Milk Hotel album, On Avery Island, and had previously been found on 1992's Beauty cassette, although the versions on both cassettes are much slower than the later, released version. "Engine", which had also been found on the Beauty cassette, would later re-surface as the B side to the Holland, 1945 7" and the Merge Records compilation Oh, Merge, though that is a live version, recorded above the London Underground's Piccadilly Circus station. The version of "Rubby Bulbs", which appears on this tape as "Bomb Drop" (perhaps to correspond with the manic quality of that version of the song) is featured on the compilation 7" 'Those Pre-Phylloxera Years', released on Box Dog Sound. "April 1st", often mislabeled as "Swallowed", is a completely different song to the "Avery Island / April 1st" which appears on On Avery Island.

"Rubby Bulbs" and "Tuesday Moon" were commonly featured in the band's live shows (the former with more restrained vocals and a concluding chorus). "Wood Guitar", "April 1st" and "Piggy" are not known to have been played, while it is likely that "Biscuit", a seemingly improvised instrumental, featuring a bleary monologue from Mangum, or "Los Angeles", an experimental sound collage, would be impossible for the band to have played.

The tape has been auctioned on eBay (perhaps the only of the early tapes to have done so) and sold for $130. MP3's of this cassette can be found on the internet for considerably less.