Away We Go With Ponytail, Harlem, Teenage Cool Kids, & Yellow Fever at Red 7 [Tonight]

It’s a rare band whose sound is both animalistic and futuristic. Ponytail is such a band, spreading the infectious gospel of noise along with a few others, most notably Deerhoof. Ponytail’s ethos is an unfettered, but grounded, sense of joy. Though inspiring, theirs is not an ethereal sound- it’s elevated playground noise, unburdened by intelligible lyrics, grass-stained, chalky, and a little sunburned. In short, Ponytail is a band of infantile troubadours trumpeting Utopia from—of all places—Baltimore.

Molly Siegel’s mouth is the motor driving it all: there is yelping, some shrieking. There will be warbling. The effect is that of a punchy, anthemic stadium rock from outer space. You’ll want to scream along. The only apt parallel we can draw to her energy is Frank Black’s on the Pixies’ Surfer Rosa and Dolittle. But once listeners get beyond Ponytail’s vocals—and we should warn you, some never will—there is a gorgeous dust cloud of structured but rubbery guitars underneath. Ponytail is also breaking ground in experimental guitar work, and we love the way guitars are made bronzy on Ice Cream Spiritual, the rare triumphant sophomore album. It’s as if their guitar texture is being hammered into a trumpet’s.

The members of Ponytail—Dustin Wong, Jeremy Hyman, Ken Seeno, and Molly Siegel—met in art class, so it makes sense that their music, though seemingly chaotic, pivots around articulate themes like a work of visual art. Many of Ponytail’s songs pivot around sonic tipping points, during which the sound erupts as if their goal all along was to memorialize the energy of boiling over. Clearly, Ponytail is an endorsement of life’s little crescendos and escalations.

Opening for Ponytail at Red Seven tonight are Harlem, Teenage Cool Kids, & Yellow Fever. So don’t miss out on tonight, and you’ll be too cool for school by tomorrow morning.