Conceived in the near hypothermic prairies of Saskatchewan, The Basement Paintings overall sound can be categorized into ambient and post-rock genres. Drums and bass pound the low end of the frequency range, while the slithering reverberations of the string section widen the spectrum to exhaustive levels of grandiosity.
Forming in the winter of 2011, The Basement Paintings quickly got to work recording a full length debut album which was released in March of 2013 along with a video for the single "Desert Surfer". The follow up EP, titled "Time Lapse City" was released in March of 2014. Featuring a collaboration with Aaron Harris (ISIS, Palms), the EP marks a major step in the evolution of the band, and the refinement of their sound. This stacked roster earned them a spot in "Ominocity's Top Local Albums of 2014". The bands 2016 release, "Mystic" was recorded in Saskatoon by Barrett Ross, Mixed by Chris Douglas at Sun Temple Studios and mastered by Harris Newman (Godspeed You Black Emperor) at Grey Market Mastering. The album was released in March, and went on to reach the Top 30 of several college radio stations across Canada, and was streamed 2300 times in its first two weeks from "Pure Grain Audio's Exclusive Album Stream". It also received a nomination for Sask Music's "Best Saskatchewan Albums of 2016", Ominocity's "Best New Music of 2016", and Here to Destroys "Best New Music of 2016".
"Canadian prog-rock/post-metal outfit The Basement Paintings recently released a new album, entitled Antipodes. Right from the get-go let it be known that this album is superlative, definitely one of the best albums of the year. According to the band, 'We thought a lot about dualities and society getting stuck in one mode of thinking, leading to problems (hence the WWII statue on the album art to represent people taking ideology to an extreme and where that leads). The name antipodes means exact opposites, and also was used by Aldous Huxley to describe the different regions of the mind that can be reached through various methods including religious experience, meditation, drugs, etc. We hope the album encourages or aids people in exploring different areas of their psyche and the collective psyche.'"
— Tattoo.com
"Antipodes is a gorgeous album start to finish. Patience is the name of the game here and these four lads from the Paris of the Prairies exhibit it in spades on this album. They let every melody ripen on the vine, allowing the album's rolling climaxes to come when they're good and ready. The post-metal scene is by no means barren these days, branches have grown out in all directions from the genre that was birthed in relative obscurity in the '90s but as for the beautiful, organic style that Isis originated, its legacy is in very capable hands with The Basement Paintings' latest offering."
— Music-News.com (Five Stars)
"These ideas are then strung together with similar sounds and feelings to create richly woven sonic tapestries, made evident in one of the band's first songs, dubbed 'Adult Male Beluga Whale.' With its creeping guitars and rich, grounding percussion, the song weaves through deep, oceanic imagery, and showcases the ability of The Basement Paintings as instrumental raconteurs. To be sure, although the process may be tedious, the attention to detail serves them well, surfacing all throughout their body of work."
— Willow Grier, Beatroute, Calgary, AB
"The Basement Paintings, a Saskatoon instrumental group that combines prog, metal and ambient textures, have brought in some big names with their latest EP, Time Lapse City. Turning to Aaron Harris – the drummer for the now-defunct California-based post-metal band ISIS – to provide album mixes, the four-piece lay down increasingly complex riffs that showcase the band's endless well of songwriting virtuosity and formidable sense of dynamics."
— Chris Morin, Ominocity, Saskatoon SK