Josie aka Sephine Llo
Sephine Llo is an avant garde composer and singer-songwriter.
Her husband Robbie died in 2016. She released the album Diamond Fall featuring samples of Robbie’s unfinished music in 2024.
“About a year after Robbie died, I was looking for a photo on a hard drive and I found a folder called ‘Ideas’. It contained lots of audio files - unfinished little seeds, I suppose.
The fact that it felt like a collaboration and a way of honouring Robbie meant I could dedicate time to it. Made it feel less selfish, somehow.
It took a long time for it to feel like an album. Each song is different and explores a completely different part of the grief journey.
Deciduous Love is a thank you to our son. It’s very stark and honest. It’s saying this is no deciduous love; this love is eternal and evergreen. And in the outro, there’s a little clip of Robbie singing: “Little baby, I hear you, I hear you. “ It’s almost a lullaby.
Sei Solo goes back to my early career as a violinist. It’s inspired by a Bach piece that he wrote after his wife died. He called it Sei Solo, which is an intentional play on words - it means ‘you are alone’.
There’s a lot of dark sounds. I didn’t feel the chords were enough, so I played bits of wood with a bow and pitch-shifted those samples to create a really guttural, low-frequency sound, almost like the creaking of a ship.
I wanted to make it more disconcerting; to really suck you in.
“It’s helped me understand grief and compartmentalise it.”
I think we went ring shopping on our second official date. Everything immediately slotted into place. Like we were meant to be together, you know?
A year later, we were getting married. But two weeks before the wedding, he had a bleed. The cancer had already spread to his liver and lungs. The fairytale turned into a nightmare.
They said he might only have six months to live.
We still got married. We cancelled our honeymoon. He had 30 rounds of chemo, then liver surgery. They took half his bowel out.
Occasionally the oncologist would say “We’re winning, we’re getting there with this.” We talked about having a family and started our IVF journey.
Then he had a bad scan. It was everywhere.
He went downhill really quickly. I was eight weeks pregnant when he actually passed.
It seems so silly to describe grief as a feeling when you’re drowning in it. It’s such a lonely, difficult to comprehend experience. Like being sucked into a black hole.
I couldn’t work. I couldn’t function. I can remember days I couldn’t even make it up the stairs.
I understand now when they say people can die from a broken heart. I think being pregnant saved my life. He was gone, but I had to look after his baby.
Those early months were a really dark time. I’d been an artist, I was on a record label, I had an album out. All of that was ripped away when Robbie got sick. And I was Robbie’s wife, but when he died that was ripped away, too.
And our son wasn’t an easy baby, bless his heart. At first, he wasn’t getting enough milk; he was basically starving. Then he had colic and allergies and he was constantly in pain. I was in and out of hospital and I was so sick of hospitals.
I put so much pressure on myself to try to be perfect, but I just had to survive. I was trying to write and I couldn’t. It was impossible. How can I put this into song?
It wasn’t just losing Robbie. It felt like I was losing me, too.
When Robbie died, I remember seeking out other people’s writing and music about loss. It’s helpful to think other people might hear my album and relate to it.
It’s also a way for me to honour Robbie and his music. I think he’s a fantastic songwriter with a beautiful voice. I want more people to appreciate his work.
It’s helped me understand grief and compartmentalise it. It’s helped me get back on my feet; to make a start. It’s helped me get back to being an artist.
I guess it was inevitable that I started writing again. It was something I really wanted to do. I think I needed it. ”