It seems like just yesterday we were all wigging out about reclusive Neutral Milk Hotel singer/songwriter Jeff Mangum's first show in nearly a decade. Then he played another one. And got booked by Portishead at Asbury Park, New Jersey's All Tomorrow's Parties festival.

Well, now it's like Mangum is freakin' everywhere. He's just been announced as the curator of ATP's Butlins, Minehead event, which takes place in early December (and he'll perform there, too). And on his way to the U.K. he's going to do a little tour -- eight dates total, including the previously announced pair at Jersey ATP. That's 800 percent more Mangum than the world has seen in a decade -- pretty much since the release of 1998's "In the Aeroplane Over the Sea" -- all in late-summer/early fall 2011.

Minds will be blown, of course. But there's also always the risk that (gasp!) they won't.

Lauryn Hill, another brilliant artist who put out an acclaimed and beloved masterpiece in 1998 and went missing, also recently returned to the road. Reviews have been mixed, or a touch negative because the writers were pissed about having to wait three hours for Ms. Hill to find her way to the stage. The hallmark of each critique, however, has been a question mark -- why now? Why not play any new material? Does she have any new material? What really was behind the long absence?

You could ask the same questions of Mangum. In an Internet age where almost no query goes unanswered, both Hill and Mangum are mum about where they've been, why they're back, and what their intentions are. All we know is a Merge Records publicist announced the new dates, and attached the above photo. Did Mangum take a 10-year vacation from the music business because he was truly freaked out by the success of "Aeroplane," or because his creative well had run dry? Would he risk dropping new material into a hyper-critical, hype-machine world that didn't exist in the '90s? We ask a lot of our rock stars now -- more bonus tracks, more shows, more guest spots, more tweets -- but all anyone really wants from Mangum is more music. Please.

In a 1998 interview, Mangum described his songwriting process as very much tied to the Elephant 6 collective's work as a group: "It's all sort of scrambled in my head, it's like scrambled eggs." He said of NMH, "I write most of the songs, yeah, but I think that the records and a lot of the music wouldn't exist without all the guys in the band and Robert [Schneider]. I write all the songs but I don't think they would be nearly as special ... I know it's a lot more special to me because of everyone else's involvement in the records."

Mangum will be surrounding himself with these familiar faces at his U.K. ATP, as he's already booked Olivia Tremor Control, Apples in Stereo, and A Hawk and a Hacksaw. Maybe that's a sign that he really is ready to return. In that 1998 interview, when asked about what's next for his band, Mangum said, "Neutral Milk Hotel will always continue. I think right now, I'm more interested in having the group sort of spend time, sort of roaming the world for a while before I concern myself with making a record."