Josephine’s journey: Grief, love and music

October 2024

To mark their tenth wedding anniversary, WAY member and musician Josephine – who records under the name Sephine Llo – is releasing a new album in memory of her husband and fellow musician Robbie. Here’s their story…

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For Josephine, music has always been more than just a creative outlet; it’s been a fundamental part of her identity. “I’ve always been a songwriter,” she explains, reflecting on her early days in the music industry. “It’s actually how me and Robbie met – through music. We were collaborating together as well in the later years.” 

Josephine’s passion for music blossomed into a career. A classically trained and award-winning composer and multi-instrumentalist, she has performed at venues and festivals including Union Chapel and at Wilderness Festival. She released her debut EP Flame in 2014. But just as her first album was ready to launch, life threw her a devastating curveball: Robbie was diagnosed with cancer nine days before the couple was due to get married.

“I had my first album finished and ready to launch when he got diagnosed,” says Josephine. Her rising career and burgeoning success were suddenly eclipsed by the weight of Robbie’s illness. “I was getting more well known, I had a record label, and it was all going quite well. And then of course, all the stress and two years of chemotherapy and surgery... it kind of put all that on hold.”

Josephine did release that first album I, Your Moon in October 2017 but the realities of her situation prevented her from moving forward as planned. “I couldn’t go on tour or anything like that. My career took a back seat,” she recalls. Adding to the emotional weight, Josephine was pregnant with the couple’s first child, who’s now seven, when Robbie died. The grief was overwhelming, and the demands of new motherhood further sidelined her music career.

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The challenges Josephine faced weren’t just emotional – they were physical too. After losing Robbie, she went through the arduous process of IVF to conceive the couple’s second child. 

“It was stressful, knackering and emotional,” she admits. “Injecting yourself with hormones doesn’t help the emotional side. I went through one round that failed, and it was devastating, like losing a child of his.” In 2019, the couple’s daughter was born.

Now with two young children to raise, Josephine has faced moments of darkness. “There have been times where I’ve struggled to cope, feeling really depressed and low,” she admits. 

Getting back to songwriting

“I was desperate to get back to songwriting,” she says. “It’s such a part of who I am, how I’ve always processed my emotions.” But in spite of her longing, her piano remained unplayed for more than a year after Robbie died. 

“The first time I sat down at a piano after he was gone, I just stared in silence for hours at the keys, and then broke down and wept, as no chords could possibly express the gravity of the emotions I was going through,” she says. “This was not just heartbreak I was experiencing, my soul was torn and tormented, and there was no sonic representation I could reach to. I couldn’t even touch an instrument for over a year.”

“The sleep deprivation of being a new mum didn’t help either,” she adds. But then, an unexpected discovery became the spark she needed. “I came across an old hard drive of Robbie’s that had all these unfinished songs, little demos and ideas on it,” she says. “There were such lovely, beautiful little gems in there that I couldn't just ignore.”

Those unfinished works became the catalyst for Josephine’s return to songwriting. “It felt like I was collaborating with him again,” she says. She used these seeds of songs as inspiration for her own music, and has weaved samples of these precious findings into a poignant and raw album about her own personal journey through the early stages of her grief.

“It’s been part of my therapy, really,” she says. “Writing again has helped me work through so much of my grief.”

The creative process wasn’t straightforward, though. As a widowed parent, Josephine had to fit songwriting around the demands of motherhood. “It happens in dribs and drabs because it had to be around mothering, sleep and tiredness. But I would record little bits of inspiration on my phone or spend evenings listening through to his demos,” she explains. “It was so important to carve out that time for myself as an artist.”

“Music has helped me compartmentalise that raw grief into something physical,” she adds. “It’s like I can put it into a song, and it becomes something I can hold, something that’s easier to deal with.”

 

A poignant tribute

Josephine has now turned those songs into her second album, Diamond Fall, which she will launch on 25 October – the couple’s tenth wedding anniversary. 

“It felt like a really poignant landmark,” she says. The launch will be marked by a concert in the same church where Josephine and Robbie were married – Nutfield Parish Church in Surrey. Proceeds will go towards Kidscan Children’s Cancer Research, which researches gentler treatments for younger cancer patients.

Josephine hopes the album will resonate with fellow WAY members and others who have experienced grief. “Music really helps you cry, helps you sink into the feeling, and sometimes that’s exactly what you need,” she says. “I hope this album does that for people.”

Josephine also hopes the album will be a fitting tribute to her late husband, collaborator and soulmate Robbie, who was in the band Autumn Chorus.

“Though the grief will never leave me, nor would I want it to, the creating and completing of Diamond Fall has allowed me to encapsulate and step outside the initial, debilitating stage of the loss, and has played a huge part in my healing,” Josephine says. “This album I dedicate to Robbie, wherever he may be.”