After solo projects, international tours, and a period of creative exploration, the Brighton-based band returns with its third album, 3, out via Bella Union. Written beneath the Portuguese sun and recorded live on a remote Scottish island, the record finds Jack and Lily Wolter embracing a new three-piece lineup, the contradictions of nostalgia, and the beauty of simply moving forward.
Some bands return from a hiatus determined to reinvent themselves. Penelope Isles aren’t particularly interested in making that kind of statement.
“It doesn’t feel like anything new. Just the next bit!”
That’s how Jack Wolter describes 3, the Brighton band’s third album, released September 25 via Bella Union. And perhaps that unassuming observation reveals more about the record than any grand declaration of artistic rebirth could.
Because while 3 marks several significant firsts for Penelope Isles, including their first album as a true three-piece and their first recorded live, its emotional center remains rooted in something reassuringly familiar: the creative relationship between siblings Jack and Lily Wolter.
Originally from the Isle of Man, the pair have spent the past decade building a musical identity around shimmering guitars, intimate harmonies, explosive dynamics, and songs that seem perpetually suspended between euphoria and melancholy.
But the years leading up to 3 took them in different directions.
Jack joined CMAT’s touring band as a guitarist and released solo music under the name Cubzoa, while Lily developed her own project, My Precious Bunny.
Rather than pulling Penelope Isles apart, those individual experiences appear to have given the siblings new perspectives on the music they make together.
“Lily’s been singing lots with her project and I think she is singing so beautifully at the moment,” Jack explains. “I tried to write a little more honestly and confidently, rather than hiding behind abstract sentences.”
That newfound directness runs throughout 3, a record that feels like a collection of postcards sent from different emotional and geographical locations.
From the Portuguese Sun to the Scottish Cold
The album began taking shape during a monthlong surf trip to Lagos, Portugal.
For Jack and Lily, Portugal was already a place loaded with memories, making it an ideal setting for the kind of reflective songwriting that would eventually define the album.
“It felt like freedom,” Jack recalls. “Portugal is a familiar, very nostalgic place for me and Lily. I hear a lot of Portugal in the lyrics of the album.”
The atmosphere was relaxed, sun-soaked, and creatively liberating.
But the music would undergo a dramatic transformation when the band reconvened a year later at Black Bay Studio on the Isle of Lewis, off Scotland’s northwest coast.
There, the idyllic openness of Portugal gave way to a considerably more demanding environment.
With only ten days to record the album, the newly configured three-piece found itself working intensely, far removed from the leisurely circumstances in which the songs had first emerged.
“We were more tired and worked harder due to only having 10 days to track the album,” Jack explains. “I think the hardness of the album, the power and the balls comes from our time in Scotland.”
That geographical contrast became part of the record’s sonic identity.
The warmth of Portugal remained in the melodies and lyrics, while Scotland introduced urgency, weight, and a harder edge.
It’s an intriguing reflection of the emotional contradictions that have always defined Penelope Isles: sweetness interrupted by distortion, tenderness colliding with something considerably more unruly.
For Jack, those opposing qualities are not contradictions to resolve but essential parts of the band’s musical language.
“There is calmness we all feel after a heavy time. Light and dark. The juxtaposition of it all.”
Three Musicians, One Room
Perhaps the most significant change on 3 is the way the music was recorded.
For the first time, Penelope Isles approached an album as a live three-piece, with drummer Joe Taylor joining Jack and Lily.
Previously, the siblings had typically developed their songs in bedrooms before figuring out how to translate them into live performances.
This time, the process was reversed.
“We had to spend time before going into the studio. Arranging and piecing things together before even placing a mic anywhere,” Jack explains.
The change required a different relationship with the songs, placing the emphasis on preparation, group chemistry, and the dynamics of three musicians performing together.
Taylor, whose credits include work with Anna B Savage and Iona Zajac, became a vital part of that process.
“Joe is a brilliant drummer,” Jack says. “He brings a lot of colour and passion to our band.”
Interestingly, Jack is reluctant to romanticize the experience of recording live.
Asked whether the process helped the band embrace imperfection and spontaneity, he offers a refreshingly candid answer.
“Tbh. I don’t reallllly think we quite nailed this. And i’ll be well chuffed with the album that we do do this on!!”
It’s an admission that challenges the familiar mythology surrounding live recording, where spontaneity is often presented as an automatic guarantee of authenticity.
For Penelope Isles, the process was more complicated.
There were happy accidents, certainly, but also the realization that learning to surrender control is itself an ongoing creative exercise.
The resulting album might sound more polished than some of their earlier work, but Jack is confident that its identity remains intact.
“It’s not a lofi sounding album. Like our others. But it still sounds like a Penny Isles album to me.”
Brighton, Memory, and the Art of the Postcard
Although 3 was conceived in Portugal and recorded in Scotland, much of its emotional geography belongs to Brighton.
Both Jack and Lily have spent the past decade living in the seaside city, and their experiences there naturally found their way into the songwriting.
The songs frequently evoke the sensation of revisiting places that have accumulated personal significance over time.
A street, a restaurant, or a familiar corner becomes a reminder of a particular relationship, friendship, or period of life.
The album’s closing track, “Bom-Bane’s,” takes its name from the eccentric Kemptown restaurant that became part of the band’s shared memories.
But the story behind the song is more charmingly ordinary than listeners might expect.
“I’ve only ever been once tbh!!” Jack admits.
He remembers visiting the restaurant with friends while Lily was away from Brighton and feeling homesick.
The place became something she could visualize and hold onto, an unlikely symbol of the home she was missing.
It’s precisely the kind of small, seemingly insignificant experience that Penelope Isles have a talent for transforming into music.
Rather than constructing elaborate narratives, the band often allows a handful of details to suggest something much larger.
Jack compares the approach to writing a postcard.
“It’s only enough words to paint a slight picture and you can use the imagery and the colours to think up what the rest can look like.”
That philosophy gives 3 much of its intimacy.
The songs don’t necessarily explain every emotion or provide a complete account of the experiences that inspired them.
Instead, they leave space for listeners to recognize something of their own lives within the music.
The Next Bit
There’s a tendency to frame every new album as a decisive turning point.
A reinvention. A rebirth. A dramatic new era.
But Penelope Isles seem more interested in the quieter reality of artistic evolution.
Bands change because people change.
Friendships deepen, creative interests diverge, new collaborators arrive, and the circumstances surrounding the music gradually become different.
For Jack and Lily, those changes have led to the addition of Joe Taylor and the discovery of a new dynamic as a three-piece.
But rather than presenting that transformation as a break from the past, Jack sees it as a natural continuation.
“Our band has taken a few different shapes over the last few years and we have found ourselves in this beautiful three. Just in time for our third record.”
It’s a fitting sentiment for an album so concerned with memory, geography, and the passage of time.
3 isn’t about returning to exactly who Penelope Isles used to be.
Nor is it about abandoning that identity in pursuit of something entirely unfamiliar.
It’s about accepting that the people who made those earlier records have grown, changed, and accumulated new experiences, and that the music can grow with them.
From the nostalgic warmth of Portugal to the unforgiving Scottish landscape and the familiar streets of Brighton, 3 captures the beauty of a band learning to inhabit its present without losing affection for its past.
And perhaps that’s the most meaningful kind of progression.
Not a dramatic reinvention.
Just the next bit.
In Conversation With Penelope Isles
3 is described as a record of firsts—your first as a true three-piece and your first recorded live. How did changing the physical way you made the record change the emotional character of Penelope Isles?
We had to spend time before going into the studio. Arranging and piecing things together before even placing a mic anywhere. We’ve always made things in our bedrooms, then worked out how to play things live after that. So it was the wrong way round for us. I’d say it’s not a lofi sounding album. Like our others. But it still sounds like a Penny Isles album to me.
Jack and Lily both stepped away into solo projects before returning to Penelope Isles. What did you discover about yourselves individually that you were able to bring back into the band?
Lily’s been singing lots with her project and I think she is singing so beautifully at the moment. Her vocal take on Bom-Banes is so stunning. I think for me. I tried to write a little more honestly and confidently, rather than hiding behind abstract sentences. There’s a balance tho! I think there’s some of this in 3.
The album was written partly during a month-long surf trip to Lagos, Portugal, then recorded on the Isle of Lewis in Scotland. How did those very different landscapes find their way into the sound of the record?
It was fun for us to take a month away all sunkissed and happy and inspired to cook up some music. It felt like freedom. Portugal is a familiar, very nostalgic place for me and Lily. I hear a lot of Portugal in the lyrics of the album. Exactly a year later we headed up to Scotland. A very different landscape. Harsher. We were more tired and worked harder due to only having 10 days to track the album. It felt very contrasting to Portugal and I think the hardness of the album, the power and the balls comes from our time in Scotland. With nowhere to go apart from working. I think this reflects in the sonics of the record.
3 feels deeply connected to Brighton, almost like a collection of memories tied to specific places. When did you realize that the city itself had become one of the album’s central characters?
I think quite early on..when we began gathering ideas in Portugal. Both Lily and I have lived in Brighton for the last decade, so naturally it makes an appearance in our recent writing.
“Bom-Bane’s” takes its name from the eccentric Kemptown restaurant you used to orbit. What memories do you associate with that place, and why did it feel worthy of becoming a song?
I’ve only ever been once tbh!! It’s just such a fun experience!! Absolutely worth naming a song about it! And is a very Brighton thing to do. Lily was away from home and a bunch of us had gone there for dinner and she was real home sick. I guess lil found it a fun visualiser and something to hold onto and talk about.
There’s a beautiful description of these songs as “postcards or pages ripped from a diary and slipped under someone’s door.” Were you consciously trying to make this record feel more intimate and autobiographical than your previous work?
I think so, yes! And maybe more honest and direct. Maybe like a postcard. I like the postcard thing as it’s only enough words to paint a slight picture and you can use the imagery and the colours to think up what the rest can look like.
The record is described as having “sweetness… but with teeth.” That tension between beauty and something darker has always existed in your music. Why do you think you’re continually drawn to putting those opposing feelings next to each other?
I think we both enjoy harsher weirder sounding music. As well as gentle folk, pop. Whatever. The contrasts in life. There is calmness we all feel after a heavy time. Light and dark. The juxtaposition of it all. I guess it’s a way of expressing each side. By showing both? We have always been drawn towards dynamics.
Joe Taylor joining on drums seems to have fundamentally shifted the chemistry of the group. What did Joe bring to Penelope Isles that allowed you to hear your own music differently?
Joe is a brilliant drummer. He brings a lot of colour and passion to our band but on and off the pitch!!!
Recording live means accepting moments that might normally be polished or corrected. Did making 3 force you to become more comfortable with imperfection, spontaneity and letting a moment simply exist?
Tbh. I don’t reallllly think we quite nailed this. And i’ll be well chuffed with the album that we do do this on!! Although there are loads of those happy accidents in there!
After solo albums, touring separately, Jack playing with CMAT, and then eventually finding your way back to Penelope Isles, does 3 feel more like a return to the band you were before—or the beginning of an entirely different version of Penelope Isles?
It doesn’t feel like anything new. Just the next bit! I guess when you start a project you think that this is it! We have this!! But our band has taken a few different shapes over the last few years and we have found ourselves in this beautiful three. Just in time for our third record.
Penelope Isles’ third album, 3, is out now via Bella Union. Listen to “Bom Bane’s” and explore their upcoming UK and European tour dates.
