‘We were building a universe that was lo-fi, personalised and highly experimental,” says Robert Schneider of Elephant 6, a self-sufficient neo-psychedelic music scene that ruled 1990s Athens, Georgia. “We worshipped Brian Wilson, Brian Eno and Yoko Ono. We mashed-up psychedelia and pop and punk and experimentalism. And we had each other to buoy us, so we didn’t need the rest of the world’s approval.”
Nevertheless, as chronicled by the excellent new documentary The Elephant 6 Recording Co, this fiercely independent, uncompromising community eventually won audiences across the world, siring a generational masterpiece along the way: Neutral Milk Hotel’s 1998 album In the Aeroplane Over the Sea.
