Ice Cream Spiritual by Ponytail

You know that gesture when you put your lips together but let them go slack, and then blow air our of your mouth while humming? It's not a raspberry-- no tongue involved-- more like an imitation horse whinny, and it's the kind of thing you might see a baby doing when she's figuring out all the different sounds that the body can produce. Well, Molly Siegel of Ponytail knows this gesture, and she thinks enough of it to have it be her first sound on the band's second album, Ice Cream Spiritual. At the beginning of the opening "Beg Waves", as two guitars play one little angular riff over and over while the drummer makes a nifty hi-hat pattern, like all three are stretching before heading out for a long run, Siegel puts her lips together and lets them flap and then turns the hum into a sort of "mmmh-bhrrrrrrrr-ahhh!" And we're off.