Tim Higgins announces his debut record, BLIGHT, to be released 2/28/2020 on Folk Victorian Records.
Written primarily during his time living in a decaying Victorian mansion in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, and informed by his futile fight against developers to preserve the turn-of-the-century "blighted" neighborhood, Higgins uses the concept of blight as a lens through which to focus on what is often considered diseased in society, the environment, and personal relationships.
Produced by Parker McAnnally, these songs couple and, at times, contrast Tim Higgins’ growling vocals with a driving urgency provided by members of The Prescriptions (Single Lock Records). Featuring further contributions from Alex Caress (Little Bandit), LG (Thelma & the Sleaze), and Kyshona Armstrong, the arrangements and musicianship on BLIGHT tell Higgins’ stories of misfits, orphans, and ruins as importantly as the lyrics.
In addition to the troubled characters we’re introduced to in “The Quitter,” “Every Day is Not a Party” (featuring LG of the celebrated Nashville queer rock band Thelma and the Sleaze), “Changing Yard,” and “I Blew It,” Higgins also brings his political mindedness into the forefront on songs like “White Youth,” which angrily crescendos against privileged white complacency in the Trump era after the 2015 Charleston mass shooting at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal church, and “Winter,” the artist’s reaction to ecological disasters, namely the 2010 BP oil spill and its unseen long term ramifications.
Higgins’ singular voice has been lauded across the US, most notably by NPR Music critic Ann Powers, who invited him to perform at her book release event in Nashville for her latest release, Good Booty: Love and Sex, Black and White, Body and Soul in American Music. Higgins as also shared the stage with critically acclaimed singer-songwriter Amy Rigby, beloved Seattle Indie artist Shelby Earl, and Americana favorite Sera Cahoone.
BLIGHT is an explosive debut from Tim Higgins that establishes him as a unique voice who seamlessly pairs Rock n Roll, Folk, and Americana with an ominous and cinematic quality.
In November 2018, Higgins released the title track from BLIGHT, which was included on Rolling Stone Country's Best New Music list. The song's music video offers listeners the first visual into Higgins' world - where the Detroit native has taken root in the Deep South's atmosphere of resilience, decadence and decay. Filmed on location around Greensboro, Alabama, opulent mansions are juxtaposed against crumbling theatre stages, rotting houses, and kudzu laden gardens. Watch the music video for Blight here.
“I Blew It,” the second single from the album, pits an apathetic narrator against futile odds. Higgins sings, “I will stand at attention / I will stand up and fight / I will carry the torch / High up over the night / But I know we will lose / And I don't know why we do it / We had our big chance /And I blew it.” The track premiered on The Bluegrass Situation on 2/26/20.
The third single and video, “Take Me Away,” was released 11/23/20, and was lauded by Rolling Stone Country’s Pick of the Week for the track’s “haunting quality” and for Higgins’ “gravely tone, dreaming of grisly ways of escaping the feelings of being stuck.”
