Penelope Trappes is a UK-based Australian experimental vocalist and musician creating intimate and sacred soundscapes that focus on minimalism, spaciousness and shadows.
Penelope’s fourth album, Heavenly Spheres, released in
April 2023 on her own Nite Hive imprint, 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 UK. The release of Penelope Three in 2021 marked the final instalment of Trappes’ acclaimed trilogy. Composed of
mostly percussionless, reverb-heavy, haunting atmospherics with dystopian themes, ‘Penelope One’ was released via Optimo Music in 2017. She then signed to Houndstooth
and released her second album ‘Penelope Two’ in 2018,
a minimalist and surreal album built around field recordings, meditations, guitars, piano and reverb, which dealt with mortality, predestination and empathy. 2019 saw the release of ‘Penelope Redeux’ consisting of reworks of songs from ‘Penelope Two’ by uncompromising artists including Cosey Fanni Tutti, Mogwai, Félicia Atkinson and Nik Colk Void.
The 'Eel Drip' EP was released in 2020 and ‘Penelope Three’, the final epigenetic-themed instalment of the trilogy, was released in May 2021 with a long string of UK tour dates, culminating in a live performance with the London Contemporary Orchestra at London’s Sounthbank Centre. 'Mother’s Blood', a vocal-free meditative reinterpretation of 'Penelope Three' was released on cassette at the end of that year.
In the live realm, Penelope has shared the stage with the likes of William Basinski, Mary Lattimore, and NYX drone choir, and has extensivley toured the UK, Australia, and Europe over the last five years.
Photo by Agnes Haus