I Just Read About That…

[ATTENDED: May 27, 2026] Penelope Trappes

I found out about Witch Club Satan last year.  I was immediately struck by the band:  three Norwegian women in corpse paint singing black metal.  And they were great. I didn’t really think they’d come to the States since they seem pretty niche, and yet, soon enough it was announced they were coming to the States for the first time.  I grabbed a ticket immediately

I didn’t know Penelope Trappes before this show.  I listened to a few minutes of a song and got the idea that she was a kind of ambient singer.

She came out on stage with a bow tied around her head with the ends raised above her head like horns or rabbit ears.  She had an electronics board and proceeded to make ambient sounds on it.  She is Australian, but lives in England.  She did say Fuck Ice, which–yes indeed!–but is she here long enough to know about ICE?   I don’t know how much international attention they are getting.  But she was immediately on our side after saying it.

She sang, often sounds, sometimes words.  The first song (I honestly don’t know if she was playing a song, multiple songs, or improvising) lasted about 20 minutes.  I only say this because that’s when she said thank you.  There were lots of changes throughout the 20 minutes and they could have been different songs but there’s no way to tell–her latest album is about 45 minutes and it’s possible she was playing the whole thing, but again, I don’t know.

Correction, I recalled a few words when she sang, and “violent hope” was one of the phrases. It’s from “Red Dove” which comes about half way through A Requiem.  It also featured synths ala Philip Glass which  rather liked.

My son did not enjoy the performance–and it was more performance than music.  I figured he’d either love it or hate it.  I think it would have been more enjoyable for about 20 minutes, but running to 45 was a bit rough.

About half way through, she grabbed a guitar and an ebow and made really loud sounds with it.  I will say that I really appreciated the lighting for the set–it coordinated really well with the beats (when there were beats).  And she played some chords near the end.  She was very intense about the whole thing–I could see the anguish on her face.  And the crowd responded well.

However, I couldn’t help think that on the other half of the tour the band Patriarchy was opening.  I don’t really know them, but I liked a song or two and my son said they played a song on the house speakers before the show and he liked it enough to look up who it was.  I now want to see Patriarchy at some point.

A less charitable, but also honest reaction to Penelope (at another venue) came from Narc Magazine:

I have to confess Penelope Trappes didn’t connect at all tonight, which was disappointing because I had high hopes. The presentation didn’t help – it was Deeply Serious European Art Goth (think Nina Hagen meets Mrs Havisham) – and it was all very po-faced. To be fair, this all seemed to be very personal and intense and troubled, no complaints about her commitment, but there wasn’t much to hold on to, song wise. There was some interesting cello, a guitar was tortured to decent effect, and she produced some remarkable sounds from her tabletop shenanigans, but it was just so solemn and stagey. I suspect the music might work much better at home, late at night accompanied by a snakebite and black, but live it was way too panto for my delicate sensibilities.