After Neutral Milk Hotel
The relative success of the album in addition to the pressures of sudden fame took its toll on Mangum, who disbanded Neutral Milk Hotel in 1998 after a tour in support of their latest album. Mangum has kept largely out of the public eye since, only rarely playing acoustic sets and concentrating more on his recorded sound and music collages.
In March 2001, Mangum and Julian Koster (also formerly of Neutral Milk Hotel) contributed to an album called Major Organ and the Adding Machine. Other involved players were Kevin Barnes from the band of Montreal, Eric Harris and Will Cullen Hart of Olivia Tremor Control, and Elf Power's Andrew Rieger.
In the summer of 2001, Mangum released a compilation of field recordings of Bulgarian folk music called Orange Twin Field Works: Volume I followed by a live album on the Orange Twin label, Live at Jittery Joe's. The set was recorded by filmmaker Lance Bangs in 1997 and was put out to combat the exorbitant sums that Neutral Milk Hotel live albums were selling for on eBay. The CD features a QuickTime movie of the concert performance, featuring a backlit Mangum seen mostly in silhouette throughout the video. In 2005, Live at Jittery Joe's was released on LP by Isota Records.
In the summer and fall of 2002, Mangum hosted several radio shows featuring tape loops and other recordings on Jersey City, New Jersey radio station WFMU.
On September 19, 2006 it was announced that Mangum would contribute to The Apples in Stereo's new album New Magnetic Wonder. Mangum is reported to be playing "drums, cow object, backing vocals, handclaps". Mangum also contributed drums to the Circulatory System album, Signal Morning, released in September 2009.
Read more about this topic: Jeff Mangum
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