On Avery Island
album by Neutral Milk Hotel
On Avery Island is the debut studio album by American rock band Neutral Milk Hotel. It was released in the United States on March 26, 1996, by Merge Records, and in the United Kingdom on September 30, 1996, by Fire Records. At the time, Neutral Milk Hotel was a solo project of American musician Jeff Mangum, who recorded the album with producer Robert Schneider from February to May 1995. On Avery Island is an indie rock and psychedelic folk album, with a lo-fi sound.
Background and recording
Neutral Milk Hotel was formed in Ruston, Louisiana, in the late 1980s, as one of the many home recording projects of musician Jeff Mangum. The simple home recordings Mangum made with his friends Robert Schneider, Bill Doss, and Will Cullen Hart led to the formation of the Elephant 6 musical collective. After graduating from high school, Mangum moved to Seattle, and released the single "Everything Is" on Cher Doll Records, under the alias Neutral Milk Hotel. The single's exposure convinced Mangum to record more music under this name. He moved to Denver, and began working with Schneider to record his first album On Avery Island.
On Avery Island was recorded from February to May 1995, and was produced and engineered by Schneider.
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Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 20, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1236077. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1996 and 1995.
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This entry incorporates text from “On Avery Island” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.