Penelope Trappes launches ‘Red Dove’ single ahead of new album
Penelope Trappes (Photo by Jason Renaud)
Brighton-based Australian vocalist, producer, and multi-instrumentalist Penelope Trappes returns with her fifth full-length album “A Requiem” on April 4th via One Little Independent Records. But before that she releases the single “Red Dove”.
She tells us this about the new single: “I felt like this dream was about humanity becoming numb, stripped of emotion, and completely lost in their pain. Sleepwalking. Swallowing the Bitter Pill. The general acceptance of destructive, violent and toxic social norms. The Red dove being a conduit of the world’s negativity, yet held peacefully in the hands of an innocent child.”
The track’s accompanying video by Agnes Haus is inspired by Werner Herzog’s 1993 documentary, “Bells from the Deep: Faith and Superstition in Russia”. Agnes Haus explains: “Penelope showed me the Herzog documentary, and we had this idea that Penelope would play the cult leader of a sect called Red Dove. We filmed the cult footage in a bizarre old Glasgow lawn bowls club, and then bought an old VCR /TV and filtered video through it, recorded footage to videocassette and re-filmed the TV. It was a longer process than anticipated, but well worth it to really try to send Penelope back through time as an evangelical leader filled with regret over a dark event.”
About Penelope Trappes
Penelope Trappes is a UK-based Australian experimental vocalist, musician, and soundscaper renowned for her minimalist and ethereal compositions. She initially gained recognition as part of the electronic duo The Golden Filter.
In 2017, she embarked on a solo career with the release of “Penelope One” via Optimo Music, followed by “Penelope Two” in 2018 and “Penelope Three” in 2021, both on the Houndstooth label.
In between she also released several both experimental and more dreampop-oriented EPs, and released an album of reworks, “Penelope Redeux”, with contributions by Cosey Fanni Tutti, Mogwai, and Nik Colk Void. The cassette, “Mother’s Blood”, was a vocal-free meditative reinterpretation of “Penelope Three”.
In 2023, Trappes launched her own cassette imprint, Nite Hive, debuting with the album “Heavenly Spheres”, composed using just piano, voice, and an old reel-to-reel tape deck during a two-week artist residency.
Penelope’s fourth album, “Heavenly Spheres”, was released in 2023 on her own Nite Hive imprint. Most recently, 2024’s “Hommelen” was released on Paralaxe Editions.
Penelope Trappes live dates
- 17.04 – Stoke Newington Old Church, London, UK
- 19.04 – 4AD, Diksmuide, BE
- 20.04 – Roadburn Festival, Tilburg, NL
- 25.04 – Sacred Trinity Church, Manchester, UK
- 26.04 – The Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh, UK
- 02.05 – Alphabet, Brighton, UK
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