On Avery Island is the debut studio album by Neutral Milk Hotel, released on March 26, 1996, by Merge Records. At the time, Neutral Milk Hotel was a solo project of American musician Jeff Mangum,

Like their Elephant 6 labelmates and kindred spirits Olivia Tremor Control’s Music From the Unrealized Film Script, Dusk at Cubist Castle,Neutral Milk Hotel’sdebut, On Avery Island, is an inscrutable concept album, a chronicle of an insular world told in a remarkably universal language. A fuzzy masterpiece of experimental lo-fi recording, the album wraps its ragged pop songs in ribbons of loops, marching-band squawks, and Casio noodling; the opener, “Song Against Sex,” is as much a manifesto as a kickoff, a self-propelled marvel hopped up on rapid-fire wordplay and a stunningly ramshackle melody punctuated by bloated trombone moans. Throughout the record, Jeff Mangum’s wheels threaten to fly off at any time — his songs are cryptic and crazed, his ideas fast and furious, and together they force the home-recording concept out of the basement and into a brave new world.

Tracklist

1. Song Against Sex
2. You’ve Passed
3. Someone Is Waiting
4. Baby for Pree
5. Marching Theme
6. Where You’ll Find Me Now
7. Avery Island/April 1st
8. Gardenhead/Leave Me Alone
9. Three Peaches
10. Naomi
11. April 8th
12. Pree-Sisters Swallowing a Donkey’s Eye

Reissue release date: 2021Originally released onMarch 26, 1996