Diamond Fall is set for release on October 25th, their 10th wedding anniversary

FFO: Julia Holter, Lanterns on the Lake, Chelsea Wolfe

New single 'All Time Low' supported by:

Radio X's John Kennedy & BBC Radio 6's New Music Fix with Deb Grant & Tom Ravenscroft

Previous Support Includes:

Wonderland, Clash, BBC Radio 3 Late Junction, Radio X

Today, composer and multi-instrumentalist Sephine Llo announces her second solo album, Diamond Fall, honouring her late husband, set for release October 25th, falling on their 10th wedding anniversary. Written equally in deepest grief and deepest love, Llo's forthcoming album is a painful tapestry of loss, denial and devastation, blanketed in devotion, determination and hope through unconventional song-writing styles that marry 18th Century UK folk with neoclassical and organically created glitchy electronica. Today, the announcement comes with the release of new single ‘All Time Low’, along with an accompanying claustrophobic and self-reflective video by Jessie Rodger.

After the tragic death of her husband Robert Lloyd-Wilson (of Autumn Chorus) in 2016 whilst she was pregnant with their first child, Sephine Llo could barely find the strength to embark on writing about her experience. The artist explains “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. This was not just heartbreak I was experiencing, my soul was torn and tormented, and there was no sonic representation I could reach. I couldn’t even touch an instrument for over a year”.

After an age of this paralysis, she found an old hard drive of Robert’s, which held many unfinished and unheard demos of his compositions, which inspired her to keep trying in her artistry. She used these seeds of songs as a catalyst for her own expression, and has weaved samples of these precious findings stunningly into this poignant and raw album about her own personal journey through the early stages of her grief and the salvation of the pregnancy.

New single ‘All Time Low’ is made up of angular electronics, alt folk, chamber pop and prog elements. It’s a demonstration of Llo’s collaboration and homage to her late husband, as echoes of his unfinished ideas live through this song, with aspects of the accompaniment being taken from his archives, which Llo looped and extended, complimenting it with layers of other instrumentation. In addition to this, Llo uses audio manipulation, warping found sounds into the unsettling yet striking introduction.

The single is about the feeling of paralysis and helplessness experienced in the early stages of her grief when the shock and adrenaline began to dissolve. Llo on the single: “when the days of constant crying were becoming less and less frequent, there were times when all I could do was to sit in a state of numb despair, almost missing the initial raw pain because somehow that honoured the loss more truly. The words ‘how do you get up from an all time low?’ refer not only to being lost in depression, but to physically not being able to get up when in this state. I would spend long periods curled on the floor or in bed staring blankly, feeling unable to move, not knowing how to function in my own thoughts”.

The accompanying video sees Llo curled up on the floor and features projections on her back from an Autumn Chorus music video, the band of her late husband Robbie. “He wrote that song after his mother died and I remember him saying he recorded the vocal curled up on the floor grieving for her. It's been so poignant listening to his album The Village To The Vale as much of the lyrics are about losing her to cancer, so of course it's a painful parallel” adds Llo.

Sephine Llo is a British composer and multi-instrumentalist, who’s sound is a rich concoction of grave, distorted soundscapes wrapping around her heart-wrenching orchestrations, and uniquely ethereal, often choral-esque vocal harmonies. Her debut EP Flame (2014, Tape Club Records) and first album I, Your Moon (October 2017, Tape Club Records), garnered attention from the likes of Wonderland, 405, Clash, BBC3 Late Junction and Radio X ‘Xposure’ and she performed at many prestigious venues and festivals including Union Chapel and at Wilderness Festival. Bereavement and lone-motherhood put an untimely hiatus on her creative career for several years; gratefully now she is back and ready to bring us her latest and most personal account to date.

Llo’s forthcoming album Diamond Fall takes us on an unapologetically honest journey through a landscape of song and sound, at times suffocatingly dark and at other times in opaque vulnerability. The album is written, recorded, produced and mixed by Sephine Llo, but feels in part like a collaboration, an intimate conversation with her late collaborator and soulmate, Autumn Chorus.

The album’s artwork depicts two linked black holes from the front to the back of the album cover, representing Llo’s loss as well as her late husband Robert’s. Llo adds “Before Robbie died, but when we knew that he would, I remember describing the future as feeling like a black hole that I couldn’t even contemplate…the tree characterises the seed of hope from carrying our child, which truly saved my life”.

For Llo, Diamond Fall holds such an important tribute, creating a tangible artefact of this harrowing, complex period of her life. “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. This album I dedicate to him, wherever he may be”.