Penelope Trappes
ABOUT
“The work of Penelope Trappes derives its power from its profound focus, the single-minded pursuit of a highly specific vibe. Once your eyes adjust to the darkness, it becomes velvety and enveloping.” - Pitchfork
UK-based experimental vocalist, musician, and multi-instrumentalist Penelope Trappes, formally trained in opera and jazz in her youth, creates brooding atmospherics and unsettling poetics underpinned by subterranean drone. Her fifth full-length album, ‘A Requiem’ on London imprint, One Little Independent, collects ten haunting incantations of dreams and nightmares, of death and grief, as well as power and autonomy. Carnal, transcendent cello drones are used to exorcise generational traumas in an evocative and macabre piece of gothic experimentalism.
In between instalments of her acclaimed trilogy, ‘Penelope One’, ‘Two’ and ‘Three’, on Fabric’s Houndstooth label, Penelope released EPs, Eel Drip, and Gnostic State, as well as experimental albums, Heavenly Spheres in 2023 and Hommelen in 2024: recordings from Britten Pears arts, and EMS Stockholm residencies, respectively.
In the live realm, Penelope’s music expands into surges of distorted tension and operatic beauty. Select shows are accompanied by a live band, and at other times, performing solo, she has shared the stage with William Basinski, Mary Lattimore, HTRK, and Masma Dream World and more while extensively touring the UK, Australia, and Europe over the last five years, including a pivotal live performance with the London Contemporary Orchestra at Southbank Centre.
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