“There are passages of profound beauty and clarity amid the maelstrom” - Pitchfork
“Meditative moments of almost spiritual intensity shifting into caustic tumult” - The Wire
“This is a deeply personal record. But the magic of A Requiem is in the way Trappes carries us with her - out of the darkness and into the light” - Bandcamp Daily
Following the release of April’s critically acclaimed ‘A Requiem’, Brighton-based artist Penelope Trappes returns with ‘Æternum’, a collection of companion pieces out now via One Little Independent Records. The record features seven previously unreleased compositions, drawn from the same emotionally charged and texturally rich sessions that shaped ‘A Requiem’.
Alongside the release, Trappes unveils the video for ‘Bleed’, created in collaboration with long-time visual partner Agnes Haus, whose work has become integral to the visual universe of Trappes’ music. Penelope describes the inspiration behind it; “Inside the womb of Earth, the caves of the Sorginak, or Basque witches, were thrumming with the energy and mystical evocations whispering from the crevices. The bats flew around me, stirring the profound history of women who met here to honour nature with ritual. Their power lives in the walls of earth, palpable and eerily beautiful, despite the inquisitions that attempted to destroy them. It felt right for the ‘Bleed’ video.”
Haus expands on the shared experience that informed the piece; “On her European tour, Penelope played at a festival in the Basque region inside of a cave. Before the show, we explored the hollow chambers, all alone, and felt a distinctive and powerful energy, as if they were very much alive. In this video, I tried to capture the stillness of the Earth slowly breathing.”
‘Æternum’ is released with a “black label” edition vinyl, featuring a minimalist all-black outer sleeve and black printed labels. A limited run, now sold out, includes a unique Polaroid of Penelope taken by Haus, affixed to the jacket.
The title, ‘Æternum’ (Latin for “eternal”) evokes the record’s enduring thematic gravity and conceptual link to grief, healing, and the passage of time. “I wrote about 35 pieces in the sessions for A Requiem,” Trappes explains, “some as minimal studies, some as mood trials, and some as full songs that just didn’t seem to completely fit on the album. I love all these songs so much, but I think they are of a time and a place that maybe I don’t want to linger in too long for future releases, hence letting them out in the world loosely forever tied to ‘A Requiem’.”
Written during an isolated period in the Scottish Highlands, Trappes composed these pieces across meditative, candle-lit sessions. Amidst deep introspection and a desire to cleanse long-buried trauma, she found herself drawn instinctively to the cello, despite no formal training. “The nerve-like strings of the cello became external chords of my vocal folds,” she reflects. “I scratched on them, leaned into them, and conjured all of the textures I could muster.”
The ‘Æternum’ tracks are rich with power and experimentation, extending the legacy of ‘A Requiem’ as a living, spiritual document. The new material spans sparse folk meditations, haunting choral drones, and lyrical exorcisms. These tracks reveal deeper layers of Penelope Trappes’ creative and emotional world, expanding the intimate universe of ‘A Requiem’. They feel like unearthed relics, ghostly and rhythmic invocations. There’s a sense of freedom in their unfinished edges and cathartic immediacy, as if Trappes is inviting the listener to peek behind the curtain. ‘Æternum’ captures the fragile beauty of an artist working in complete vulnerability and trust in her instinct.
‘A Requiem’ received support from the likes of Pitchfork, The Wire, MOJO, Uncut, Record Collector, Bandcamp Daily, NPR, PROG, Electronic Sound, The Line of Best Fit, Crack, Clash Magazine, Nowness, Stereogum, Gorilla vs Bear, Resident Advisor, Futurism Restated, BBC Radio 3’s Unclassified, 6 Music’s Forever Dark, New Music Fix Daily, Lauren Laverne, Deb Grant, Tom Ravenscroft, and many more. Penelope hosted a listening party and Q&A event with Cabaret Voltaire’s Stephen Mallinder. This summer, she embarked on her extensive EU and UK tour.
‘A Requiem’ is a musical service in honour of the dead, a sanctuary Trappes built for herself to explore familial chaos and history. “I was looking for an equilibrium between a ‘heaven' and a ‘hell’” she explained at the time, “screaming out to the wisdom of our foremothers - surfacing and leading me into true strength and beauty. I listened to the sorrow closely. Death is a part of our reality. Inevitable. Omnipresent. But nightmares can be beautiful”.
Despite formal vocal training in opera and jazz when she was younger, it wasn’t until after her daughter was born that Penelope began writing her own music. She says coming into music later has been eye opening, and she laments the fact that women past 30 are too often discarded by the music industry; “Creativity doesn’t go away when you get older, it flourishes, changes, grows like all of life,” she says, “it amazes me that this is still something for society to wrap their heads around.”
Penelope released her acclaimed trilogy, ‘Penelope One’, ‘Two’ and ‘Three’, on Fabric’s Houndstooth label. In between instalments of her ambitious trifecta, Penelope released a clutch of both experimental and more dreampop-oriented EPs. She demonstrated her versatility in the extended 25-minute deep-listening composition ‘Gnostic State’, and the arpeggiated electronics and minimalist songwriting on the ‘Eel Drip’ EP, which was accompanied by image and film inspired by Francesca Woodman’s 1970s series of nude self-portraits with eels. She also released an album of reworks, ‘Penelope Redeux’, with contributions by Cosey Fanni Tutti, Mogwai, and Nik Colk Void, and the cassette ‘Mother’s Blood’, a vocal-free meditative reinterpretation of ‘Penelope Three’ concluding with the live-scoring of a one-hour film at Sonica Festival.
Penelope’s fourth album, ‘Heavenly Spheres’, was released in 2023 on her own Nite Hive imprint, and was composed using just piano, voice and an old reel-to-reel tape deck during a two-week artist residency for Britten Pears Arts at the house where the composer, teacher and musicologist Imogen Holst lived in Aldeburgh, Suffolk. 2024’s ‘Hommelen’, the austere and beautifully severe result of her Halldorophone residency at EMS Stockholm, was released on Paralaxe Editions.
In the live realm, Penelope’s music expands into tidal waves and surges of tension with hypnotising gothic live visuals by Agnes Haus. Select shows are accompanied by a live band, and other times performing solo, she has shared the stage with the likes of William Basinski, Mary Lattimore, and HTRK, and she has extensively toured the UK, Australia, and Europe over the last five years, including a pivotal live performance with the London Contemporary Orchestra at Southbank Centre.
Photo credit: Agnes Haus
Art credit: Agnes Haus
Tour dates
19th Nov - UK, Glasgow - Cottiers Theatre
29th Nov - UK, London - St Matthias Church
Live Visuals by Agnes Haus |
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