by Ljubinko Zivkovic (@zivljub)
When presenting a new release PR people in most cases go overboard in their fanciful descriptions. Yet sometimes they hit it (almost) perfectly. That rare case just happened with the latest album by songwriter and producer Curtis Godino, the press release noting, "what if a cute girl group scored a hit song about a car crash, then actually died in a car crash, but decades later, David Lynch conjured their spirits for a beach-themed Halloween special?"
That's how their blurb starts, and to it we can add: "All set in the late fifties/early sixties as if Bongwater decided to go girl group with a twist." The mention of Bongwater here is not accidental, as (recently resurrected) Shimmy Disc supremo Kramer is involved in this affair too, co-releasing the record with Joyful Noise Recordings.
Still, Godino is sort of both a mastermind and a middleman here, as the album is billed in the form of Curtis Godino presents The Midnight Wishers. Although the album is full of Godino and Kramer's touches all over, it is The Midnight Wishers who act as the medium to present the ideas of transporting the sound of iconic girl groups into the modern age and giving it a kind of a weird-left field touch. It was up to lead vocalist Jin Lee and backing singers Rachel Herman and Jessica McFarland, all of whom Godino recruited for the project to carry out the ideas and the concept of the album, with Lee contributing lyrics throughout.
From the starting "Always Waiting" to the concluding "I'll Be Wishin'' they’ve created something of a spooky teenage soap opera (after all, he has set up the album's concept in time when soaps ruled both the radio and TV world), all with spoken interludes and radio announcements. This is most apparent on "WXLUV" and full of left-field touches reeking of early psych on "He Loves Me Not". The standout track is certainly "No Place Like Home" with its drifting organ and half-spoken teenage girl vocals backed by some subdued, distorted slide guitars.
There is an expansive sound quality that permeates the album, all the greater achievement, having in mind that Godino wrote, recorded and produced the whole thing in his bedroom. All of …presents the Midnight Wishers has that feel of something we might have heard before but coming from an alternate reality where 1962 is actually 2022.