Australian-born Brighton-based musician Penelope Trappes has shared a new single & accompanying short film directed by Agnes Haus, "Blood Moon,” from her forthcoming album 'Penelope Three.' The album will be released next Friday, May 28th on Houndstooth.
Following singles “Fur & Feather” and “Nervous,” “Blood Moon” is atmospheric and dreamlike; a song about repurposing the fear within.
"I consider the moon a temple, a mirror of our emotions,”
elaborates Trappes.
“The blood moon symbolically represents the beginning, the ending and a clean slate. ‘Blood Moon’ is about being uncompromisingly true to oneself despite societal expectations. Everyone should be free to express femininity in their own individual way. The burdens and expectations instilled in us at childhood weigh us down and hold us back. This song is about never giving in to this pressure and dismantling a system of oppression that is carried within our bodies. A metamorphosis."
Commenting on the accompanying visual, she adds:
"The short film ’Blood Moon’ is a modern take on the goddess Isis if she were around to face today’s world. Isis is the protector of women and children and the healer of the sick - but despite her powers, she would still be weighed down by societal expectations of what is expected of women."
Where 'Penelope One' explored aspects of birth and rebirth and the power of the female body, and 'Penelope Two' was centred around the acknowledgement of grief and how we carry our own stories of loss, 'Penelope Three' is about healing the stories held in her body by surrendering to universal love. In it, she explores her metamorphosis through tales of motherhood, the divine feminine, anxiety, healing powers and their spiritual connections through vocal loops, piano and guitar drenched in reverb, all underpinned by subterranean drones. She looks not just to release herself from the grieving process in Penelope Two, but also of societal anxieties, embracing the generational shift that is happening as her daughter grows up, her mother gets older and how she sees the world drastically changing.
“I’m digging up the underworld with visual motifs, and a mystical, gothic darkness that symbolises my struggles” she says of Penelope Three. “Yet the universal message is that of overcoming our fears to allow the love in. This is the healing.”
On 'Penelope Three', Trappes wears her breadth of life experiences with pride; pain, joy, love, loss, and the freedom in accepting change and acknowledging lessons learnt. It is a celebration of womanhood and a testament to the wisdom acquired through living and allowing oneself to live.
