Cerca:penelope trappes

On April 4th, Brighton-based Australian vocalist, producer, and multi-instrumentalist Penelope Trappes will release her fifth full-length album ‘A Requiem’. It comes alongside news of her signing to London imprint, One Little Independent Records. ‘A Requiem’ collects ten haunting, ambient soundscapes - incantations of dreams and nightmares, of death and grief, as well as power and autonomy. Carnal, transcendent cello drones are used to exorcise historical and generational traumas in an evocative and macabre piece of gothic experimentalism.

Seeking solitude for what she knew would be an intense and cathartic writing experience, Trappes travelled to Scotland and isolated completely. Amidst meditative and psychedelic states, she channeled demons and accessed parts of herself she’d long desired to cleanse. During candle-lit recording sessions she found herself drawn to cello, an instrument she has no formal training in, she explains, “I always felt an affinity toward the cello, I embraced it, held it, and became one with it as a way to accompany my voice. The nerve-like strings of the cello became external chords of my vocal folds… I scratched on them, leaned into them, and conjured all of the textures I could muster”.

‘A Requiem’ is a musical service in honour of the dead, a sanctuary Trappes built for herself to explore familial chaos and history. “I was looking for an equilibrium between a ‘heaven' and a ‘hell’” she explains, “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”.

She continues, “This album is my personal requiem for my parents, my ties to the land where I was born, along with all of my epigenetically connected ancestors before them. The songs helped me summon up the strength to move through my own awareness of mortality, death, and impending loss. This album is a living funeral. It’s a ceremonial collection of music. It’s an externalising of the power and strength to fight the generations of abuse and darkness that my parents self-admittedly played out in their parenting and to keep it away from my own social patterns and my psyche. It’s not an uncommon thing in the world and this lamented warcry goes out to everyone to help exorcise patriarchal, political, and religious systems of abuses of power”.

"Penelope Redeux" enthält 10 Reworks von Tracks des zweiten Albums "Penelope Two" (2018) der New-Yorker Ambient-Gothic-Künstlerin Penelope Trappes. Die fantastischen Reinterpretationen stammen u.a. von den schottischen Post-Rock-Legenden Mogwai, Paul Corley (Sigur Ros), Cosey Fanni Tutti (Throbbing Gristle), Nik Colk Void (Factory Floor), dem schwedischen Duo Aasthma (Peder Mannerfelt & Pär Grundvik), der Isländerin Jófríður Ákadóttir (JFDR), Savages-Produzent Johnny Hostile und Throwing Snow (Houndstooth). Im April 2019 tourte Penelope als Teil des Duos The Golden Filter mit Sharon Van Etten.

Optimo Music is thrilled to present 'Weaponise Your Sound', which has been curated, conceived and designed by Kristina McCormick (Diet Clinic). Diet Clinic is an NTS radio show showcasing female DJs/artists.

It is the first vinyl release on Diet Clinic's newly-formed sub label of Optimo Music marking International Women's Day 2019 and featuring brand new tracks from artists C.A.R, Cucina Povera, Fantastic Twins, Human Jones, Maral, Marika Underspreche, Odete, Penelope Trappes, Slime, Sue Zuki and Zoe McPherson.

They may be scattered across the globe but their love, strength and support for their art and counterparts continue to inspire on a daily basis.

All proceeds go London based charity, Focus E15 which demands social housing, not social cleansing!

A decade after its release, A Fragile Geography returns transformed. This limited edition cassette accompanies the AFG10 anniversary reissue, offering an inspired re-envisioning of Rafael Anton Irisarri’s landmark compositions. Reworks presents distinctive readings of these pieces, with each artist leaving their personal mark on the material. The titles remain unchanged, with the sole exception of “Hiatus,” reborn here as “Ausencia.” Together, these reimaginings extend the emotional cartography of the album into new terrains.

KMRU reframes “Displacement” with expansive, glimmering layers that open into meditative ambient landscapes. Nairobi born and Berlin based, he is known for morphing field recordings into vivid aural experiences, often capturing the texture of footsteps, foliage, and distant city life and weaving them into contemplative soundscapes. In this version he introduces subtle new sounds, including stringlike synths that trace and heighten the piece’s emotional arc. The result invites close listening, offering enveloping tones where the organic and the synthetic gently collide and flow.

Penelope Trappes renders “Reprisal” as a voice-led invocation of the delicate and the intimate. Her wistful vocals bloom with fragile sorrow, rising over shimmering strands of strings to create a sound world at once sacred and shadowed. She is adept at channeling inherited grief into music that is transcendent and otherworldly. The interplay of her voice, the strings, and her use of space and depth draws those qualities into Irisarri’s orbit, imbuing “Reprisal” with the same spiritual weight and clarity that define her most powerful work.

Kevin Richard Martin (a.k.a. The Bug) transforms “Empire Systems” into a cavernous “Iced Mix,” driven by polyrhythmic double bass motifs and sculpted from subterranean pressure and negative space. Known for pushing sound to its physical limits, Martin brings the stark intensity of his dub and noise infused practice into Irisarri’s architecture. The track seethes with harmonic distortion and erupts in white noise rhythms, its brooding low end depth and icy reverberant textures amplifying the tension. Vulnerability and force are set in stark relief, as silences feel as heavy as the bursts of sound themselves. The result is a stark study in atmosphere, restraint and impact, reframed through Martin’s singular lens of sonic mass and low end intensity.

On Side B, Mabe Fratti opens with a cinematic, dreamlike, Lynchian reimagining of “Hiatus” in her native Spanish (“Ausencia”). She threads cello and voice so wondrously that her rendering feels at once hauntingly beautiful and disquieting. Emotionally charged melodies shift in unexpected directions, while her soft, intimate vocals hover above Irisarri’s brooding synth textures. Fratti’s gift for blending experimental and avant pop sensibilities with visceral, emotionally powerful expression shines resplendently here. She gives voice to Irisarri’s reflections on the passage of time and his growing desire to reconnect with his familial roots.

Abul Mogard stretches “Persistence” into a vast drone elegy. A master of patient sound sculpting, Mogard layers evolving waves of analog synths into a dense shroud that radiates its own internal light. Gradual surges of tone and subtle harmonic shifts emphasize the piece’s endurance and inevitability. Irisarri’s original composition, in Mogard's hands, becomes a rumination on time’s unrelenting flow. Melancholy and transcendence coexist in equal measure in this engulfing, cathartic rework.

William Basinski and Gary Thomas Wright close the cycle with a spectral version of “Secretly Wishing for Rain.” Basinski’s field recordings of Reseda rainfall and birdsong, which open and close the rework, add a personal touch and evoke the imagined sound of a grainy film reel flickering to life. The piece suspends Irisarri’s yearning for the Pacific Northwest, lodging it hazily between memory, place and an unreachable dream. It feels like a fading recollection, half forgotten and half felt. A final gesture that dissolves the album into vapor, leaving the listener adrift in its lingering afterglow.

Mastered with great care by Stephan Mathieu and featuring a remixed version of the original artwork by Daniel Castrejón, this edition refracts the language of the original through new prisms. Less a return than a passage, across time, across interpretation, into uncharted emotional realms.

Healing Together is a benefit compilation for mental health recovery featuring 23 ambient-electronic artists from around the world. Recognizing that music is a bridge to normalizing conversations about the challenges people are going through, each artist was prompted to create a song that would help someone with mental health struggles know they're not alone. This sprouted into a collection of ambient music holding space for the many emotional landscapes we experience as humans. Healing Together features new compositions specially prepared for the compilation from the incredible line-up of women artists Nailah Hunter, Penelope Trappes, Clarice Jensen, Drum & Lace, Sofie Birch, Hollie Kenniff, Clariloops, more eaze, Ami Dang, Karen Vogt, Patricia Wolf, Zoe Polanski, Sachi Kobayashi, Christina Giannone, Ai Yamamoto, Cat Tyson Hughes, IKSRE, Inquiri, Belly Full of Stars, Claire Deak, Pechblende, Caminuata and marine eyes. Net profits of the compilation will go to Sounds of Saving, a non-profit fueling hope for mental health both by celebrating the power of human connection to music and directing people towards the resources they need before it's too late.

Features new collaborations with Laraaji, Janie Cowan, Masayoshi Fujita, Qasim Naqvi, Brad Weber, Hanna Benn, and PRINTtEXT. A coproduction of Anchorage Museum, National Geographic Society, and Temporary Residence Ltd. What does the Earth sound like? In Stations, the 10th volume in the Field Works series, producer Stuart Hyatt approaches that question with a team of scientists working on the EarthScope experiment. Using sophisticated ground recording
devices, Field Works has created a new type of music in which human voices sing along with the actual voice of the Earth. Stations features an all-star ensemble of vocalists and instrumentalists, including Hanna Benn, Janie Cowan, Masayoshi Fujita, Stuart Hyatt, Laraaji, Qasim Naqvi, and Brad Weber. The deluxe vinyl edition includes a bonus digital album of peer reviews by Deantoni Parks, Green-House, Olga Wojciechowska, Afrodeutsche, Nathan Fake, Ben Chatwin, Sophia Loizou, Amulets, Penelope Trappes, and Alva Noto. Stations was commissioned by The Anchorage Museum and The National Geographic Society. “For those interested in the intersection between field recordings and music, this is a must-have.” A Closer Listen // “A beguiling and quietly astonishing piece of work.”

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Optimo Music are delighted to present the second full-length from The Golden Filter, "STILL // ALONE".
After relocating to London and playing shows around Europe for a year and a half, self-imposed pariahs Penelope Trappes and Stephen Hindman delved into creating a two-sided existential opus by renting out old studio spaces around the UK and using mostly analog 80's instruments, machines and effects.
An album about being in love with pure solitude, when STILL // Optimo Music are delighted to present the second full-length from The Golden Filter, "STILL // ALONE".
After relocating to London and playing shows around Europe for a year and a half, self-imposed pariahs Penelope Trappes and Stephen Hindman delved into creating a two-sided existential opus by renting out old studio spaces around the UK and using mostly analog 80's instruments, machines and effects.
An album about being in love with pure solitude, when STILL // ALONE is separated into two distinct sides, record one, STILL, is a hypnotic meditation for the nightclub. Wavy patterns of sound and light bounce off of Penelope's literary vocal bursts, layered over the ominous deep synths and arpeggiators, held together only by a strict 4/4 beat. The rhythm, ironically forcing the body to move, however internally focused and mindful, still.
Record two, ALONE, takes the club offline and into the fringes of raw, odd pop.

Ever-prominent drum machine beats rule, while love and loss permeate the four atmospheric goth songs. Music for dancing alone.
"Behind the cotton wool is hidden a pattern... the whole world is a work of art... there is no Shakespeare... no Beethoven... no God; we are the words; we are the music; we are the thing itself." - Virginia Woolf