Brighton-based Australian artist Penelope Trappes is a vocalist, producer and multi-instrumentalist who is as prolific as she is gifted. Gracing us with her fifth full-length album A Requiem, Trappes fully immerses herself in an intense meditative and psychedelic writing process. The result: transcending, haunting and other-worldly soundscapes.
A Requiem sees Penelope Trappes channeling demons and accessing deeper parts of herself.
I was looking for an equilibrium between a ‘heaven’ and a ‘hell’, 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”
Penelope Trappes
Album opener ‘Bandorai’ draws us into the ambient darkness of this album’s universe. The use of space alongside mournful cries and deep, vibrating cello can only be described as beautifully bone-chilling.
Writing this, I was channeling my ancestors – conjuring help from the mystics to help rid myself of pain and suffering instilled through my generational lineage-specifically thinking of the physical and mental abuse my Nana had to endure from heralcoholic husband along with the gender identity abuse my father endured by his pharmaceutical-addicted strict mother – and how these affected my parents – and in turn me.
Trappes describes the fourth track ‘Sleep’ as a “drastic and extreme purge of emotion”. It is an incredible track that is both captivating and emotive yet chilling and unsettling, as the lyrics explore nearing death atop deep, thundering strikes of sound.
Musically, album mid-point ‘Red Dove’ sounds stellar and ascending with hypnotic synths. Of its meaning, Penelope Trappes divulges that “the red dove [is] a conduit of the world’s negativity, yet held peacefully in the hands of an innocent child”.
Album closer ‘Thou Art Mortal’ is perfectly placed, providing us with a sense of calm closure after an intense audio journey. There is something particularly meditative about this final track, written in Gaelic, as Trappes acknowledges her ancestors and the “ever fluid ways of this universe”.
From beginning to end, A Requiem feels more like a spiritual experience than what you might come to expect from an album. It’s hard to describe until it is heard and lived; it is as if Penelope Trappes is using sound to draw something out of you that you didn’t even know was there. This isn’t one to dip in and out of the car – carve out some time and experience fully. A Requiem is out now on One Little Independent Records.
Follow Penelope Trappes via her website | twitter | facebook | instagram | bandcamp
See Penelope Trappes Live:
- 17th April – Stoke Newington Old Church, London, UK
- 19th April – Kapel Begijnhof, Diksmuide, BE
- 20th April – Roadburn Festival, Tilburg, NL
- 25th April – Sacred Trinity Church, Manchester, UK
- 26th April – The Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh, UK
- 2nd May – Alphabet, Brighton, UK