Josephine Sillars
2024
Josephine Sillars
Age: 29
Location: Glasgow/ Leeds
Pronouns: she/her
Hailing from the Scottish Highlands, but currently based in Leeds/Glasgow, Josephine Sillars is a pop musician, drawing comparisons to Fiona Apple and Bjork.
Her music has been supported by BBC Introducing and BBC Radio Scotland, where she has been a Track of the Week Artist multiple times. She released her debut vinyl “Spend Time Wasting” with Come Play With Me, where it featured as Track of the Week for God Is In the TV, as well as with DORK, Lock Magazine and the UK Official Charts. In 2023 she released an EP with electro-folk act Loughlin following a demo receiving over half a million views on TikTok. Her 2024 EP “The Loveliest Things Change” was described as “push[ing] the boundaries of her artistry, it’s her most cohesive and accomplished project to date” (Tenement TV).
Josephine is also an accomplished session musician performing with Declan Welsh and the Decadent West, The Girobabies, Rubber Rose and more. She is one half of Popgirlz Scotland, a group with over 200 members supporting women, trans and non-binary people in music. Alongside Popgirlz founder Rachel Johnson (Kohla), she has led a lecture series to UK, Irish and Scandinavian universities where the duo presented research into Intersectionality within Spotify algorithms, fighting for equity for marginalised artists. This research has been published by PRS M Magazine, Scots Life and more.
This year Josephine was interviewed by BBC Radio One, Newsbeat and BBC Scotland (The Nine) regarding the Misogyny in Music report, and with Popgirlz Scotland, Josephine and Rachel appeared in the award nominated documentary Since Yesterday: The Untold Story of Scotland’s Girl Bands.
Josephine also works as a fundraiser. She writes funding applications on behalf of artists, with the majority of her work being for neurodiverse and/or disabled artists. She has raised over £150,000 in 3 years across Creative Scotland, Arts Council England, Help Musicians and more as an independent, freelance fundraiser