from the press release

Arriving on May 29^th, ‘Opvs Novum: A Requiem Reworked’ finds Penelope Trappes inviting a carefully chosen circle of kindred spirits to dismantle and reanimate the funereal intensity of her fifth full-length album ‘A Requiem’. Conceived as more than a conventional remix record, the project reframes the original work through ten distinct artistic voices.
 
Where the original album was stark, ritualistic, and inward facing, these reinterpretations expand its emotional architecture. Klara Lewis and Flora Yin-Wong sculpt their tracks into glacial drones, Gazelle Twin and PRIZMA9 heighten the gothic unease, while Midwife and Julia Holter draw out its devotional melancholy into something almost hymnal. Contributions from Stephen Mallinder (Cabaret Voltaire), Saint Etienne, Smote, Dania, and Sarahsson underline Trappes’ unique position between sacred lament and avant electronic ritual, transforming her songs into a series of spectral mirrors that refract grief through industrial pulse, haunting ambience, and dream state pop.
 
On the new version of ‘Platinum’, long-running London trio Saint Etienne bring their renowned affinity for blending electronic textures with pop sensibility to Trappes’ world, drawing out the track’s underlying sense of drama and reshaping it into a driving, hypnotic piece that balances tension with release. Leaning into the original’s melodic core and rich instrumentation, they build a dense, immersive arrangement.
 
Pete Wiggs from Saint Etienne tells us; “I love the slightly dark and cinematic moods of Penelope’s music. Platinum was a great track to mix with its haunting melody and heavenly cello arrangement – it felt just right for an ear pummeling trance-inducing rework”
 
Trappes expands; “It takes a collective energy to bring anything to life, and some of my favourite artists came together to bring their own beautifully unique energy to reinvent ‘A Requiem’. I wanted Opvs Novum to feel like an original album with an aura all of its own.
 
The ten artists here exploring these themes of death and grief are humans who have inspired and supported me. It means so much to bring them all together, and I am infinitely humbled by their transcendental creations. I thank you all. As we all comprehend our own collective grief in a world that would rather keep us separated and fearful, I hope this can be a small testament to what it means to reimagine a collective hymnal spirit.”
 
2025’s ‘A Requiem’ was 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 explained at the time of release, “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.”
 
The album received support from the likes of Pitchfork, The Wire, MOJO, Uncut, Record Collector, Bandcamp Daily, NPR, PROG, Electronic Sound, The Line of Best Fit, Crack, Clash Magazine, Nowness, Stereogum, Gorilla vs Bear, Resident Advisor, Futurism Restated, BBC Radio 3’s Unclassified, 6 Music’s Forever Dark, New Music Fix Daily, Lauren Laverne, Deb Grant, Tom Ravenscroft, and many more.
 
Despite formal vocal training in opera and jazz when she was younger, it was not until after her daughter was born that Penelope began writing her own music. 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 and grows like all of life,” she says. “It amazes me that this is still something for society to wrap its head around.”
 
Penelope released her acclaimed trilogy, ‘Penelope One’, ‘Two’ and ‘Three’, on Fabric’s Houndstooth label. In between instalments of the trilogy, she released a series of experimental EPs. She demonstrated her versatility in the extended 25-minute deep listening composition ‘Gnostic State’, and the arpeggiated electronics and minimalism on the ‘Eel Drip’ EP, inspired by Francesca Woodman’s self-portraits with eels. She also released an album of reworks, ‘Penelope Redeux’, with contributions from Cosey Fanni Tutti, Mogwai and Félicia Atkinson, and the cassette ‘Mother’s Blood’, a vocal free reinterpretation of ‘Penelope Three’, concluding with the live scoring of a one-hour film at Sonica Festival.
 
Penelope’s fourth album, ‘Heavenly Spheres’, was released in 2023 on her own Nite Hive imprint. It was composed using just piano, voice and an old reel-to-reel tape deck during a two-week artist residency for Britten Pears Arts. 2024’s ‘Hommelen’, the austere and beautifully severe result of her Halldorophone residency at EMS Stockholm, was released on Paralaxe Editions.

Published post no.2,860 – Thursday 16 April 2026