Penelope Trappes – Penelope Two (2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 32:10 minutes | 330 MB | Genre: Electronic, Indie, Ambient
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Houndstooth

Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front cover | © Houndstooth

Following her debut album ‘Penelope One’ for Optimo Music, antipodean vocalist, musician and soundscaper Penelope Trappes presents sophomore longplayer ‘Penelope Two’, for Houndstooth. Elements from multiple sources are subsumed by Trappes’ sonic presence; one hears Baldametti and Julee Criuse’s work for ‘Blue Velvet’ and Twin Peaks, Galazie 500 and Slowdive’s dreampop, the schorched comedowns of early Primal Scream, Tuxedomoon and Colin Newman’s dark melancholia, plus contemporaries like Grouper, Tropic Of Cancer and Sky H1. A deeply melodic, with her intimate, maternally-tender voice floating in the middle of each three dimensional, womb-like sonic space. Originally from Byron Bay Australia before moving to New York, meeting partner Stephen and developing experimental electronic projects Locke and Priscilla Sharp, prior to their best-know incarnation -The Golden Filter. Cut and mastered by Matt Colton and manufactured at optimal media, Germany.2017 saw the release of the Golden Filter’s Penelope Trappes’ first solo effort, Penelope One, via Optimo Music. Here, esteemed London electronic label Houndstooth have put out her sophomore release. The record’s hypnotic and atmospheric soundscapes further cement the label’s mission statement to put out an eclectic array of unique and original electronic music. Much like its predecessor, the album is composed of swirling ambience and gorgeous, reverb-laden songs. Album-opener “Silence” delivers Trappes’ crooning vocal melodies amidst a cloud of ambience before giving way to lead single “Connector.” The latter features thudding, crunchy percussion with overdriven David Lynch-esque guitars while Trappes’ forlorn vocals ache through the rest of the mix before the latter half of the song delivers rich, warm synth pads carrying listeners out to the end. Another highlight is “Carry Me,” a sinister and powerful track made up of unwavering minor chords that bubble atop bluesy percussion, with creepy vocal harmonies carrying the track verse to verse. The follow-up “Maeve” recalls the angelic and warm vocal work of Julee Cruise, panning out among celestial and ethereal bursts of synthesized chords. Just like her first release, Penelope Two exemplifies Trappes’ ability to craft arresting and magnetic songs that feature minimal composition. She manages to say a lot while never overdoing things or cluttering up the mix. The album is another solid outing for this unique and talented musician. ~ Rob Wacey

Tracklist:

1. Penelope Trappes – Silence (02:41)
2. Penelope Trappes – Connector (03:53)
3. Penelope Trappes – Burn On (03:12)
4. Penelope Trappes – Kismet (02:57)
5. Penelope Trappes – Carry Me (03:25)
6. Penelope Trappes – Maeve (04:09)
7. Penelope Trappes – Exodus (01:36)
8. Penelope Trappes – Farewell (01:56)
9. Penelope Trappes – For You (02:54)
10. Penelope Trappes – Nite Hive (05:23)

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Penelope Trappes – Penelope Three (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 37:02 minutes | 400 MB | Genre: Electronic, Ambient
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Houndstooth

‘Penelope Three’ is the third and final instalment of the Australian-born Brighton-based musician’s trilogy. She completes her ambitious and other-worldly triptych with an album of healing, on which she looks to release herself from fear and into love, evoked in Penelope’s signature ambient gothic dreamlands that are equal parts shoegaze pop and surrealist soundscapes.The powerful yet fragile lead single, “Nervous,” blossoms like a flower in time lapse, swelling with reverb and decaying into a dense sound world. Commenting on the video, Trappes says: “In mid 2020 I began renting a strange and unique house in Brighton, but I couldn’t actually move into it for a month, so I used the odd space and time to film this video. It delves inside the mind of a nervous smoking woman, which takes the form of an oppressive strange house. Inside, she is confronting the balance between the masculine and feminine within her, which take the form of two spirit characters. Outside there are expansive but liminal moments of reprieve from the claustrophobia, but she invariably gets drawn back into the anxious loop of her own mental entrapment.”

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. Now in her 40s, 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.”

Where ‘Penelope One’ explored aspects of birth and rebirth and the power of the female body, and ‘Penelope Two’ was centred around the acknowledgement of grief and how we carry our own stories of loss, ‘Penelope Three’ Is about healing the stories held in her body by surrendering to universal love. In it, she explores her metamorphosis through tales of motherhood, the divine feminine, anxiety, healing powers and their spiritual connections through vocal loops, piano and guitar drenched in reverb, all underpinned by subterranean drones. She looks not just to release herself from the grieving process in Penelope Two, but also of societal anxieties, embracing the generational shift that is happening as her daughter grows up, her mother gets older and how she sees the world drastically changing.

“I’m digging up the underworld with visual motifs, and a mystical, gothic darkness that symbolises my struggles” she says of Penelope Three. “Yet the universal message is that of overcoming our fears to allow the love in. This is the healing.”

Crucially, for this final part of the trilogy, Penelope has returned to focus on her voice, her first and original instrument. “The compositions are very driven by the vocals, because it is our primal instrument that can tell our story,” she says. Her singing is swaddled and haunted by brooding and atmospheric soundscapes, her poetic lyrics lifted by sounds sometimes light and hallucinatory, other times menacing and cavernous.

In between instalments of the ambitious trilogy, Penelope has 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’ (Longform Editions), 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 a bonus sister EP to ‘Penelope Two’, titled Withdrawn, and an album of reworks, Penelope Redeux, with contributions by Mogwai, Cosey Fanni Tutti, and Nik Colk Void, among others.

Here, on ‘Penelope Three’, Trappes wears her breadth of life experiences with pride; pain, joy, love, loss, and the freedom in accepting change and acknowledging lessons learnt. It is a celebration of womanhood and a testament to the wisdom acquired through living and allowing oneself to live.

Tracklist:

1. Penelope Trappes – Veil (01:44)
2. Penelope Trappes – Nervous (04:24)
3. Penelope Trappes – Forest (04:51)
4. Penelope Trappes – Fur & Feather (03:04)
5. Penelope Trappes – Red Yellow (03:45)
6. Penelope Trappes – Halfway Point (04:26)
7. Penelope Trappes – Blood Moon (04:03)
8. Penelope Trappes – Lucky Eleven (03:02)
9. Penelope Trappes – Northern Light (02:32)
10. Penelope Trappes – Awkward Matriarch (05:06)

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Penelope Trappes, Sarahsson – OPVS NOVUM: A Requiem Reworked (2026) [24-bit FLAC]
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 00:52:23 minutes | 529 MB | Genre: Electronic

Tracklist:

1. Penelope Trappes, Klara Lewis – Bandorai (Klara Lewis Rework) (00:07:29)
2. Penelope Trappes, Saint Etienne – Platinum (Saint Etienne Rework) (00:05:06)
3. Penelope Trappes, Flora Yin-Wong – Second Spring (Flora Yin-Wong Rework) (00:03:12)
4. Penelope Trappes, Gazelle Twin, PRIZMA9 – Sleep (Gazelle Twin & PRIZMA9 Rework) (00:03:41)
5. Penelope Trappes, Midwife – A Requiem (Midwife Rework) (00:06:26)
6. Penelope Trappes, Sarahsson – Anchor Us to Seabed Floor (Sarahsson Rework) (00:10:12)
7. Penelope Trappes, Smote – Red Dove (Smote Rework) (00:04:51)
8. Penelope Trappes, Stephen Mallinder – Caro (Stephen Mallinder Rework) (00:04:08)
9. Penelope Trappes, Dania – Torc (Dania Rework) (00:02:47)
10. Penelope Trappes, Julia Holter – Thou Art Mortal (Julia Holter Rework) (00:04:26)

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Penelope Trappes – OPVS NOVUM: A Requiem Reworked (2026)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 52:23 minutes | 532 MB | Genre: Alternative, Ambient
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © One Little Independent Records

‘OPVS NOVUM: A Requiem Reworked’ finds Penelope Trappes inviting a carefully chosen circle of kindred spirits to dismantle and reanimate the funereal intensity of her fifth full-length album ‘A Requiem’. Conceived as more than a conventional remix record, the project reframes the original work through ten distinct artistic voices.

Where the original album was stark, ritualistic, and inward facing, these reinterpretations expand its emotional architecture. Klara Lewis and Flora Yin-Wong sculpt their tracks into glacial drones, Gazelle Twin and PRIZMA9 heighten the gothic unease, while Midwife and Julia Holter draw out its devotional melancholy into something almost hymnal. Contributions from Stephen Mallinder (Cabaret Voltaire), Saint Etienne, Smote, Dania, and Sarahsson underline Trappes’ unique position between sacred lament and avant electronic ritual, transforming her songs into a series of spectral mirrors that refract grief through industrial pulse, haunting ambience, and dream state pop.

Trappes explains; “It takes a collective energy to bring anything to life, and some of my favourite artists came together to bring their own beautifully unique energy to reinvent ‘A Requiem’. I wanted Opvs Novum to feel like an original album with an aura all of its own.

Tracklist:

1-1. Penelope Trappes – Bandorai (Klara Lewis Rework) (07:29)
1-2. Penelope Trappes – Platinum (Saint Etienne Rework) (05:06)
1-3. Penelope Trappes – Second Spring (Flora Yin-Wong Rework) (03:12)
1-4. Penelope Trappes – Sleep (Gazelle Twin & PRIZMA9 Rework) (03:41)
1-5. Penelope Trappes – A Requiem (Midwife Rework) (06:26)
1-6. Penelope Trappes – Anchor Us to Seabed Floor (Sarahsson Rework) (10:12)
1-7. Penelope Trappes – Red Dove (Smote Rework) (04:51)
1-8. Penelope Trappes – Caro (Stephen Mallinder Rework) (04:08)
1-9. Penelope Trappes – Torc (Dania Rework) (02:47)
1-10. Penelope Trappes – Thou Art Mortal (Julia Holter Rework) (04:26)

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