THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Living In A Burning House is groundbreaking young blues visionary Selwyn Birchwood’s third album. The rising guitar and lap steel player 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. 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-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. 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.”
Living In A Burning House is a master class in distinctive, contemporary roots music and positively brimming with instantly catchy lyrics, undeniable grooves and some of the most exhilarating guitar playing in any genre. It has 13 compelling originals include horn-fueled declarations of love, rocking reflections on modern life and low and slow ballads, all bound by Selwyn’s raw, urgent vocals.”
