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Binding Spell – English Basement 

Sometimes location is everything. The space where one experiences crises can often take on a greater significance than the crises themselves. Such is the case for Roger Poulin and the Washington, DC English basement apartment from which Binding Spell’s new LP gleans its title. English Basement is a nine-track collection of genre-blurring post-punk that finds Poulin reflecting on himself, his relationships and the world at large from the confines of his subterranean home studio in Capitol Hill. “In 2019, my wife and I separated and I moved into this english basement apartment,” says Poulin. “As soon as I moved in, I didn’t have any of the music for it, but I knew I was going to write an album called English Basement. I started working on it the day the lockdown started and then it evolved as the world changed outside.”

Written and recorded in the Spring of 2020, English Basement effectively captures the surreal repetition and loneliness of existing in isolation while the world crumbles just outside without ever directly referencing the COVID-19 pandemic. Instead, Poulin looks inward, processing his recent divorce & personal shortcomings stacked against the backdrop of global trauma, upheaval and anger. “When I started writing, I knew I wanted the record to have an arc to it,” says Poulin. “It felt like a weird time to be introspective, but I wanted to focus on, like, personal reminiscence in the context of this global apocalypse that’s happening around everyone.”

From March until June, Poulin remained 100% in isolation, writing, recording and listening to the sounds of the nation’s capital as the silence of lockdown gave way to the shouts and stomps of protests. English Basement follows similar patterns, at times frenzied and buzzing with paranoid energy, at others, calmly shimmering and reflective. For such a personal record, it’s fitting that Poulin created the bulk of it on his own, though the album does feature contributions from Sara Phillips (vocals), Eric Schneider (guitars, bass), Jeff Allison (guitars), and Marshall Dunn (guitars), many of whom recorded their parts from their own isolated berths around the United States. 

Though Poulin produced English Basement on his own, he brought in mixing engineer Ben Etter (Deerhunter, Hazel English, Washed Out) whose talents can be heard across the entire record. “Once we were done tracking, I just felt like I had no objective view of the songs anymore since I’d heard them so many times,” Poulin says. “Working with Ben was awesome, we just clicked. I heard his first mix and was immediately like, ‘Yeah, this is exactly what I wanted.’”

English Basement kicks off with “Negative Instinct,” a punchy post-punk track driven by percussive guitars that hypnotically draws the listener into Poulin’s world as he explores the patterns of self-destructive behavior that follow a life-changing event like divorce. Poulin’s disparate influences are felt almost immediately though, as “Negative Instinct” gives way to “Living Is Just Dreaming,” a psychedelic, cosmic-country influenced track that directly confronts the surrealism of isolation. “I started to feel like I didn’t exist, it was really messing with my head to go that long with no in-person contact at all,” says Poulin. “The whole world started to feel like a lucid dream.”

Elsewhere on the album, “Been Better” channels Black Angels-inspired psych-punk as Phillips & Poulin directly reflect on recovering after life-altering heartbreaks, while the jangly “Cigarettes and Perfume” contemplates separation from a kinder perspective, embracing the good times while shedding the feelings of wistfulness for what has been lost.

Creating art in total isolation also forced Poulin to look for creative ways to feel connected and build community. On English Basement’s title track, Poulin reappropriates lyrics written by former Hypnotist Collectors and Lotus Moons bandmates as an homage to their talents and a way to connect with them through art. Recording remotely across the country allowed him to collaborate with artists that were new to him and eventually led to the creation of a remote recording collective outside of Binding Spell.

English Basement is an isolation record that manages to eschew loneliness. It exists not only as a snapshot of place and time, but as an example of art’s ability to aid in self-examination and to foster community where there is none.

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