Penelope Trappes’s 2018 LP has been laid out on the operating table, broken down and made anew by the likes of Cosey Fanni Tutti, Mogwai and Nik Void

Penelope Trappes’s Penelope Two – her 2018 album of dreams-gone-wrong art installation pop – has undergone an intensive series of reworks with Redeux. The original traverses minimal industrial zones and employs spectral sound design to craft a set of songs as beautiful as they are unsettling. It is a world cut-off, offering sensory deprivation tank submersion, and suggesting an artist in complete control of her sonic and aesthetic environment. Would breaking Penelope Two down and rebuilding it be an act of unnecessary vandalism or an exploratory endeavour revealing a new and vital work of art? I can confidently report it is the latter.

Mogwai’s dark cathedral reconfiguration of “Burn On” is like a nuclear blast in Lynchian slow motion. As an opening statement it’s impossible to argue with; any concerns are eradicated like air from a room. Trappes’s soundscape of the interior is expanded to reveal the gaping maw of another universe above and the sky falls upwards. Cosey Fanni Tutti then crawls over the threshold with her take on “Carry Me”. Its repetitive beats occur at the minimum speed to sustain life as a horn bleeds through the veil. This is otherworldly techno to be worn like another skin. Long live the new flesh.

Factory Floor’s Nik Colk Void bruises “Nite Hive”, pulling it down onto the dank rave dancefloor. Machine-like throbs and console crackle lend the track the sort of reality found beating within your chest. It’s a moment of panic stretched out and examined with surgical coolness. “Connector” springs alive under the stewardship of Aasthma, opening up like a triffid ready to dine. They’ve concocted a mix of hurtling breakbeats, background acid swirls and revelation-through-the-clouds enlightenment. It’s the brightest moment on the record.

The closing palate cleansing rework of “Burn On” takes a wholly different approach to Mogwai. Félicia Atkinson strips it down to Trappes’s vocal and sets it free at the edge of space and time. Field recordings bubble up from underneath and piano is introduced as a spirit guide. As different to the earlier rework as can be, Atkinson’s minimalist study is nevertheless just as natural a fit. Penelope Trappes’s sonic pieces more than hold up to multiple interpretations and I get the feeling that each was a gift to the artist tasked to remix.  

penelopetrappes.bandcamp.com

Stewart Gardiner
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