Track By Track: Penelope Trappes – A Requiem
Penelope Trappes’ fifth album, ‘A Requiem’, is a ceremonial journey through loss, transformation, and ancestral healing.
Written in complete solitude in rural Scotland, Trappes channels both personal and generational trauma into ten ambient soundscapes, each acting as an incantation for catharsis and reclamation of power. The album’s creation was deeply ritualistic – candle-lit sessions, meditative states, and an intuitive embrace of the cello as an extension of her voice – resulting in starkly intimate and hauntingly surreal.
Each track on ‘A Requiem’ is anchored in its own world of symbolism and emotional resonance, drawing on everything from the legacy of female druids in Celtic spirituality to confront and exorcise inherited pain and suffering to the metallic grey of autumn, its cavernous vocals and tenebrous atmospherics acting as a shield against daily battles and the pervasive sadness for those lost to fear and self-destruction.
It is a call to arms, urging perseverance through adversity, confronting societal taboos around aging and the gender binary. Its blackest-black soundscape and baroque potency evoke the liminal space between life and death, grappling with the conflicting emotions of longing for peace for a loved one and the pain of impending loss. The album balances heaviness with moments of release and transcendence, meditations on humanity’s numbness and the hope embodied by innocence. a space to honour the dead, confront familial chaos, and reclaim a sense of home and peace.
A journey through sorrow, strength, and the reclamation of self, illuminated by the wisdom of those who came before.
Trappes’ broke down the album in detail below…
Bandorai
Colour: The flare of orange that bleeds into the darkness beyond the edges of a candle’s flame.
Season: the hottest day of the year with haze, sweat, dirt, – inescapable sensations of rising emotions empowered by hope and abundance.
Inspiration: What sparked the track’s creation?
Through my fascination with celtic spirituality and druidry, I discovered the female druids – the
Bandorai. These women were the wise ones, poets, seers, astronomers, midwives, healers, and
mediators of their communities. They were revered for performing ceremonies, magick, and ritual
through alchemy, mysticism, medicine, law, and science. As I was writing this song, I was trying to
channel my ancestors – conjuring help from these mystics to help rid myself of all pain and
suffering instilled through my generational lineage.
Setting: Where were you when the idea for this track hit you? And where do you think the track
would feel most at home being played?
I was at home alone in my studio, post-meditation, yearning to access the pagan ancestral energy
of the UK that would give me the mental strength to deal with the current modern world. Ideally,
this should be played atop one of the 282 Munros in Scotland
2. Platinum
Colour: Which colour most closely embodies this track?
Dirty grey metal of an old chain
Season:
On the first cold Autumn day, leaves are turning and the air is crisp, yet the smell of decay is in the
air
Inspiration:
Written as a reminder to keep my shield of armour up. I was thinking of the battles that
we deal with daily, searching for a hidden power to propel myself into a higher state as
A form of protection in the hopes of finding a waking spell to cast on the world. But also, the loss…
a deep sadness for all of those lost who will never reach their potentials because of extreme fear,
self-destruction, or preventative external factors.
Setting:
Written during a Glaswegian summer in the thick of the city but best to be listened to in nature,
preferably in the grove of a quiet forest, surrounded by trees.
3. Second Spring
Colour: Which colour most closely embodies this track?
dark reddish-purple, like that of deoxygenated venous blood
Season:
Winter Solstice. That moment when you know the darkness has peaked and that the light will
return
Inspiration:
I’ve reached an age where I am no longer able to bear children and historically, societies tend to
discard women who’ve lived this long. ‘Menopause’ is considered a shameful word. This song is a
liberation. With age we grow, we learn, we inspire, no matter what our gender is, which raises
further questioning as to what it means to be Woman and perceptions regarding the gender
binary… This song is wordless as we have been taught not to talk about all of these things.
Setting:
It was written alone in a studio after a meditation, but this song and all it stands for needs to be
loud! On a massive stage with an immersive sound system with pyrotechnics, haze, strobes and
whatever it takes to shake the norms of reality!
4. Sleep
Colour: Blackest black
Season:
Samhain – the point that marks the end of the harvest season and the beginning of the darker half
of the year. This is when the veil between the living and the dead is at its thinnest.
Inspiration:
This is predominantly taken from a dream my father had. It permeated my thoughts as he
had never shared a dream with me before, and he explained it in great detail.
The dream: My father is on a boat with two of his oldest and best male friends. They are
sailing on a river. He interrupts the dream description with a question “Are they going
upstream? Or is it downstream? I think we were going with the current….” Back to
describing the dream – He sees something crawling up over the side of the boat, and looks
closely and sees that it is a giant Golden Orb spider… Instinctively he wants to kill it and
takes off his shoe and starts hitting it. He kills the spider and sails off downriver with his
friends – happy.
I have felt like my parents have been knocking on death’s door for some years now and when he
told me about his dream I could see this was his moment of yearning for peace. My overall
interpretation: The spider is a feminine symbol that I think represents my ailing mother – his
‘burden’ that complicates his ‘joyous’ journey with his old friends. Inside, he’s longing for eternal
peace.
Setting:
Written in a dark studio after a fight with a family member it is the darkest moment on the album. I
feel it would be most at home played alone in a field at night in pure solitude. Pure darkness. Fear
just out of eyesight. The release of pain with death for a loved one is infinitely hard to sing about
and it’s such a conflicting thing to even think about. Musically this is heavy and gut-wrenching stuff.
A drastic and extreme purge of emotion. Best to be scared and alone for this.
5. Anchor Us To Seabed Floor
Colour:
Deep greenish blue of a cold sea
Season:
Early spring – a season of purging everything that no longer serves your progression. Letting go of
the things you used to love through hard transitions. To grow from a seed the most amount of work
must be done. Surrender. Trust that the change will come.
Inspiration:
After a particularly hard chat to a family member, this is the feeling I had after the mental fatigue.
The sadness for the casualties – part of myself included. Though I am still here.
Setting: Where were you when the idea for this track hit you? And where do you think the track
would feel most at home being played?
I often sit right at the edge of the sea and look to the horizon. These meditative moments help me
to drift in the best way. This song is for the spirits that live in the sea and beyond.
6. Red Dove
Colour:
The not-so-new green of early summer
Season:
Late summer, after all of the Spring’s new life has gone replacing its hope with the need to do all
the hard work of summer to find strength to sustain life. And also the anxiety that you can get when
you know the warmth will not last much longer and winter descends.
Inspiration:
I had one of my many armageddon dreams, though I don’t exactly remember all of the details. I
remember the overall feeling and the vivid ending, where I saw a boy holding a red dove. I felt like
this dream was about humanity becoming numb, stripped of emotion, and completely lost in their
pain – sleepwalking and swallowing a bitter pill through the 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 a child. Surreal.
Setting:
Written at home after my dream, I would adore this track to be played throughout a thousand
shopping malls all across the country, all at the same time, on repeat for one hour while
documenting all of the shoppers’ confusion…
7. Caro
Colour:
Faded night blue of twilight
Season:
A winter’s dawn – just before the sun when light is diffused.
Inspiration:
A wordless incantation. A cleansing of body, mind, and spirit after violent thoughts. Based on
Carna, the Roman Goddess of Health and Vitality, the protectress of our vital organs…Caro means
flesh in Latin.
Setting:
Researching physical health and healing is a common thing for me. I believe that our body is our
sacred ‘chapel’ and should be respected and listened to. Perhaps this should be played at a
kindergarten or an Aged Care home.
8. A Requiem
Colour:
White of the largest cumulous cloud.
Season:
Imbolc – the halfway point between the winter solstice – Yule – and the spring equinox – Ostara. The
word “imbolc” translates to “in the belly of the Mother.” For me it’s representative of many seeds of
change slowly coming to my life.
Inspiration:
This is a ‘living funeral’ – a dirge – to my parents and to my old life in Australia. An impending and
imminent goodbye to family alongside a constant state of grief from missing the land that raised
me; the big skies, the trees, the birds… I know soon there will be ‘the call’ – where I have to travel
home for a bittersweet family funeral, which will also further and more decisively cut ties with family
and the country where I was born, but I am fully at peace about it. In a lot of ways, it’s a beautiful
thing. It’s all been a long time coming. It’s a reclaiming of what ‘home’ is to me. Being content and
at peace with being heavily connected to the UK, but at the same time never fully letting go of
where I came from.
Setting:
I don’t remember exactly when I became obsessed with wanting to sing about home… it’s been
brewing for many years. After time connecting with Scotland and my ancestral ties to the rugged
beauty of its countryside…. I think it would be best listened to on a sunny day, shoes off, lying
down under a tree watching the sky. At peace.
9. Torc
Colour:
Orangey dusty pink of sunset
Season:
Summer. The peak of harvest season.
Inspiration:
A liturgical calm. Empowerment and peace in embracing death.
Setting: Where were you when the idea for this track hit you? And where do you think the track
would feel most at home being played?
These interludes were written when I rested my voice, prepared for what I was about to channel
through my body. I relaxed with my guitar. I relaxed into the moment. I think this one would be best
heard inside a cave, held deep within the earth, watching the storms pass outside….
10. Thou Art Mortal
Colour:
Deep water blue
Season:
Summer Solstice – a day for pure celebration of life and all the light and love that runs through
humanity
Inspiration:
Written in Gaelic, it acknowledges my ancestors, their ancestors, and the ever-fluid ways of this
universe. I wrote it as a cleansing mantra. We are small. We are water. And when we are done
here, we return to water. Life is beautiful. Surrender. All love.
Setting: Where were you when the idea for this track hit you? And where do you think the track
would feel most at home being played?
Written after a day alone walking around the standing stones and cairns of Kilmartin, Scotland.
Again, very influenced by Scotland. It’s best to be heard there, preferably by a loch. Reflective
surfaces, brimming emotions, mighty mountains, near fluidity.
Trappes is currently touring the album at the following venues and dates:
17th Apr – Stoke Newington Old Church, London, UK
19th Apr – Kapel Begijnhof, Diksmuide, BE
20th Apr – Roadburn Festival, Tilburg, NL
25th Apr – Sacred Trinity Church, Manchester, UK
26th Apr – The Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh, UK
2nd May – Alphabet, Brighton, UK
Topics
