Over two albums and a handful of extended plays, the Australian-born, Brighton-based Penelope Trappes has traded obliquely in themes of motherhood and femininity, tracing the twisted shapes and familiar gestures of the body, exploring feelings of anxiety, loss, and grief.
Beyond experiments in arpeggio and the odd conflagration leaving slow-burning embers in its wake, the music has remained hauntingly familiar. Through acoustic piano, minimal percussion, the muffled echoes and imperious decay of reverb and layers of gauzy effects, Trappes has inhabited the same sort of sphere as her contemporaries Grouper, Julia Holter, and Frankie Rose while evoking everything from the downtempo grooves of Portishead and the baroque pop of Scott Walker to the siren songs of This Mortal Coil.
On Penelope Three the songstress finds her footing and harks the lapping sounds of the shore. The album completes the triptych begun four years ago upon the release of her solo debut Penelope One. Penelope Three then is conceived as the culmination of a process of rebirth and healing.
Where previously Trappes’ voice sometimes hung like a spectre on the edge of her dense and drone-like recordings, and other times seemed to inhabit the centre of an empty room, on Penelope Three her voice drives the music and summons the elements, from birdsong to the sea, wind, and stars.
The manner remains intimate but there is a little more shimmer and sheen. Trappes introduced Penelope Three with slow-moving and slightly macabre music videos for the songs ‘Nervous’, ‘Fur & Feather’, and ‘Blood Moon’. ‘Fur & Feather’ finds her navigating the Celtic mythologies of the selkie, tales of skin-shedding and homing which summoned for Trappes the inevitability of her daughter leaving home upon turning eighteen. ‘Blood Moon’ offers a modern take on the Egyptian goddess Isis, purveyor of moon life and magic, protector of women and children, and healer of the sick.
Elsewhere Trappes’ voice sounds out as though surrounded by snippets from a Greek chorus. Vocal loops and loping piano and guitar are cut through by sawing strings on ‘Northern Light’, while there is a jazzy vamp to ‘Red Yellow’. ‘Halfway Point’ tilts blissfully in the direction of dream pop, while the album closer ‘Awkward Matriarch’ finds self-acceptance as the ultimate means of metamorphosis.
