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Penelope Three

by Penelope Trappes

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    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
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  • Record/Vinyl + Digital Album

    180g vinyl, heavyweight outer sleeve.
    Mastered and cut by Matt Colton at Metropolis Studios.

    Includes unlimited streaming of Penelope Three via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
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  • Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    CD

    Includes unlimited streaming of Penelope Three via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 3 days
    Purchasable with gift card

      £8 GBP or more 

     

  • Limited Edition Crystal Clear Vinyl
    Record/Vinyl + Digital Album

    180g vinyl - heavyweight outer sleeve
    Mastered and cut by Matt Colton at Metropolis Studios.

    Includes unlimited streaming of Penelope Three via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

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1.
Veil 01:44
Oh little one you’ve come from long ago observe us all and watch it fall no need to run despite it all you’re pure of love and show all
2.
Nervous 04:24 video
I’m nervous when you stare into my eye I’m nervous Always there inside my mind Truthful There are no lies Truthful Falling with me Let me hypnotise I’m nervous Futile There is no bias Tale on trial Crucial untrust Let me hypnotise I’m nervous honestly I’m nervous honestly I’m nervous honestly I’m nervous
3.
Forest 04:51
Under forest floor Talk to above Secrets far below Gold crown highest spine you search and find divine now whisper to me love Believe and we will see eternal mystery Believe see believe see believe Believe (hear the Believer) You search and find the light now whisper to me love secrets far below eternal mystery Believe secrets travel far below secrets travel far below secrets travel far below secrets travel far below secrets travel far below secrets travel far below
4.
Our end, fur and feather grew I’ve a thousand eyes, I see you Our end, fur and feather grew I’ve a thousand eyes, I see you I’ll never lose my sense of love Sew every inch within Our end, fur and feather grew I’ve a thousand eyes, I see you
5.
Red Yellow 03:45
Slip inside my house Trickle down Slip inside my house Burn all this down Burn my house down Red Yellow Red Yellow Slip inside my house drip inside my mouth red is the colour the colour of now Slip inside my house trip in life go round together we’ve found Red Yellow Burn all this down Burn my house down Burn all this down Burn my house down Red Yellow Red Yellow
6.
Mother hold me tight and now, now you let me go sad sister, you’re dying on the inside but now, now you’re looking out I’m at the halfway point hold all the fire halfway point I owe this all to you I promise to capture all the love see the soldiers, drowning all around But 3 sisters, are watching over you I’m at the halfway point I’m at the halfway point
7.
Centre body and guide show me what to do serve grace with trebles eye turn must push on through I, I won’t lose I’ll tear up our love I, I won’t lose Blood moon rising above, our love Lover remember repurpose fear within along heated lines Can’t hear if you are fine I’m strong enough I’m strong enough oh oh life I, I won’t lose I’ll tear up our love I, I won’t lose Blood moon rising above, our love
8.
Lucky Eleven 03:02
Four weeks we sailed but nothing prevailed lucky sated moon, uprooted path our lives coincide lucky And now we’re in heaven lucky 11 touch for the meaning in waves we are dreaming you see it quite clearly that I feel for you dearly And now we’re in heaven lucky 11 And now we’re in heaven lucky 11
9.
10.
keep within me encased within awkward matriarch your childhood mystery yet eternal beauty awkward matriarch awkward matriarch people pretend means to an end hold right scar with right hand Tension beauty burns alternate views will turn tension beauty burns alternate views will turn unchain liberty keening like a banshee awkward matriarch awkward matriarch lines to contend means to an end hold right scar with right hand people pretend means to an end hold right scar with right hand

about

Penelope Trappes has announced details on her third album ‘Penelope Three’, to be released on May 28th as well as details of a UK tour planned for May. Along with the announcement, Penelope has also shared the first single and video, “Nervous” which you can watch below.

‘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.


2021 Live dates:

13 May - The Great Escape, Brighton *Live Stream*
23 Sept - The White Hotel, Manchester
24 Sept - The Alchemy Experiment
25 Sept - Future Yard, Birkenhead
26 Sept - Attenborough Arts Centre, Leicester
30 Sept - The Rose Hill, Brighton
21 Nov - St Pancras Church, London

credits

released May 28, 2021

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Penelope Trappes Brighton, UK

“intimate and surreal—like watching yourself mourn intense tragedy from an outsider’s vantage point.” - Bandcamp

"the sound of dust motes momentarily caught in a shaft of moonlight, of spirits pushing through from another realm. Alluring yet unsettling.” -Electronic Sound

"striking work of evolution and deconstruction" -The Wire

“Summoning the great ghosts of vintage 4AD and Kranky” -Pitchfork
... more

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