Silver Summit

Silver Summit's self-titled debut fits roughly into the acid folk category, with its melancholy melodies and the earnestly mystical tinge of David Shawn Bosler and Sondra Sun-Odeon's compositions. The use of exotic (by rock standards) instruments like saz, mandolin, gong, Tibetan singing bowls, African water drums, and harp also adds to the odd aura, as do Sun-Odeon's rather grimly downbeat vocals, the spooky backup vocal harmonies, the unusual electronic effects, and the overall unpredictable structures and progressions of the songs. Strong elements of vintage British folk (Bert Jansch's "Wishing Well" is the sole non-original) and Middle Eastern/Asian tunes and instrumentation are also present. Any traces of rock music, in fact, are relatively inconspicuous, although you can hear some grungy, ripping electric guitar riffs in a few cuts. But although the atmosphere's consistently haunting, the songs are often too fragmentary to make a deep impression and the mood too stonily inward-looking. There's eclectic ability in Silver Summit, to be sure, but there's also a feeling that they're biting off a few more diverse forces than they should be chewing to make coherent musical statements.