It turns out playing ‘hard to get’ can work rather well.

In 1998, Jeff Mangum and his band Neutral Milk Hotel released their magnum opus, In The Aeroplane Over The Sea, and it barely registered as a drop in the indie ocean. After over a decade of being a recluse, Mangum sold out London’s own Union Chapel in just 3 days. For the first time, the band’s brief career has been compiled into one vinyl-only box set containing their two studio albums, and a wealth of rare and unreleased material.

In The Aeroplane Over The Sea is, quite bluntly, one of the greatest records ever made. Mangum conjures images inspired by Georges Méliès and Jules Verne, often of anachronistic contraptions composed of the bric-a-brac of the household of his youth. Mangum never sounds entirely in control of the music he creates; he is not just vulnerable, he is constantly at risk of being consumed and swallowed alive by the product of his own thoughts.

At the climax of ‘Ghost’ and in its consequent instrumental reprise, he finally explodes in a jubilant, cathartic cacophony of a theremin and bagpipes. This sets the stage for ‘Two Headed Boy, Part 2’ - an arcane closing serenade while the subsequent debris cascades down around his head.

Elsewhere, their debut On Avery Island is much murkier and messier than its refined sibling, but features the incredible ‘Naomi’ - in my opinion, their greatest moment. Here his lachrymose lungs plead for a lover not to leave him here, wherever ‘here’ may be; it could not be more urgent, vital and on the brink of destruction.

On the new Ferris Wheel on Fire EP, live staple ‘Engine’ is the immediate standout. Featuring curiously cursive lyrics and sung over a lonely singing saw, the song sees an attempt to exorcise both the monsters that lurk under his bed and the demons that sleep between the covers. Meanwhile, the crestfallen ‘My Dream Girl Don’t Exist’ is a tale of suburban dissonance that feels like gazing through a spinning zoetrope; fleeting images spin so fast one can barely hold them.

Neutral Milk Hotel’s impact on the contemporary indie scene is colossal. Their incredible repertoire of obscure instruments surely guided Beirut’s Gulag Orkestar and Sufjan Stevens’ work, as well as undoubtedly influencing Arcade Fire, Bon Iver and Brand New, among others. Despite this, no one has yet replicated anything quite this extraordinary. Obsessive and corrosive yet intricate and bittersweet, only one person could have created such beautiful, personal music. This collection proves that by the point that he disappeared he had perfectly defined his life, his death and everything in between - what on earth could you have done for an encore?