Last week, groundbreaking young blues visionary Selwyn Birchwood released his new video for the song Freaks Come Out At Night. The original track is featured on his highly-anticipated third Alligator album, Living In A Burning House, set for release on Friday, January 29, 2021.
Of the song, the rising singer, songwriter, guitar and lap steel player says, “Freaks Come Out At Night was written for, about, and filmed on-site at the last “real” Jook Joint in Florida: Bradfordville Blues Club. This song and music video capture the magic that happens at every show we play there. The song projects the rawness of the music, the sweatiness of the dance floor, the heat of the bonfire, and the greasiness of the fried catfish! The freaks definitely come out at night! And I wouldn’t have it any other way!”
Birchwood calls his original music “electric swamp funkin’ blues,” defined by raw and soulful musicianship played with fire-and-brimstone fervor. His gritty, unvarnished vocals draw his audience deep inside his unforgettable tales of love, passion, pain and pleasure. The Wall Street Journal says Birchwood is “a skilled, energetic and original artist…his songwriting is observant, clever and pointed. His voice is smooth; his singing on target. His guitar fluency generates new licks and rhythmic surprises. Expectations have been high for Mr. Birchwood—and he lives up to them.”
No other band on the current blues scene is built quite like Birchwood’s. In addition to Selwyn’s electrifying guitar and lap steel playing, the other featured instrument is Regi Oliver’s driving baritone sax. The group is rounded out by bass, drums and, for the first time, keyboards.
Wanting to capture the power of the now larger band, Birchwood wrote and arranged 13 new songs, and brought in famed Grammy Award-winning musician Tom Hambridge (Buddy Guy, Christone “Kingfish” Ingram, Susan Tedeschi) to produce. From the rocking opener I’d Climb Mountains to the sweet soul of She’s A Dime and One More Time to the hair-raising Revelation, Living In A Burning House features some of the most vividly striking writing on today’s blues scene. Birchwood’s voice and vision are clear, his sound is edgy and compelling, and his stories are memorable and lasting.
“I write and sing what I know,” says Birchwood, whose musical innovations are as expansive as his influences are deep. “They say everything is better when it’s made with love,” says Birchwood. “That’s how we play our music and that’s how we made Living In A Burning House. I want my audience to say, ‘I know exactly what that feels like,’ when a song hits them. Because that’s when it stops just being music and starts being medicine. After all, we are all stricken with the condition of being human.”
