CHILD + THE BANNED Delivers A Raw Confession About Anorexia

According to the National Institutes of Health, anorexia has the highest mortality rate of any mental health disorder - a chilling statistic that feels even more devastating in the context of our beauty-sick, body-image-driven culture. This stark reality underscores the resilience of Josephine Carl, better known as CHILD + THE BANNED, an ethereal, London-based artist unafraid to delve into life’s darkest corners.

“In my early adolescence, I was very ill with anorexia,” she reveals. “My heart was beating at a very low rate, and I was taken out of school, in and out of hospital, in and out of rooms with doctors, psychiatrists, adults who had no idea of all the fear I was carrying—fear of letting go of childhood, of survival… I’ve never really been able to speak about it as openly before as I do now.”

Josephine uses her latest track, ‘Long Time Ago,’ as a vessel to confront these personal battles head-on. “Writing the song, I was reliving this sense of my inside world falling apart in tandem with the world outside falling—environmentally and politically—into destruction. In the studio, I wanted to make a track that transports you away from the current craze, to the other side of the apocalypse, a space beyond time where there is hope,” she shares.

True to her unique sound, ‘Long Time Ago’ features Josephine’s signature vocals—a mesmerizing combination of childlike vulnerability and fierce, fairy-like strength—paired with grand string arrangements and pulsating Juno bass. The track feels like a collision of worlds: a haunted symphony hall on one side and a late-night club in Berlin or Prague on the other,  reminiscent of artists like FKA Twigs or Grimes. Accompanying the release is a spellbinding folk-horror-inspired short film directed by Jacob John Harmer, which premiered on the globally renowned cinema platform NOWNESS. 

For every girl who has ever wrestled with the suffocating combination of self-hatred and self-obsession, ‘Long Time Ago’ by CHILD + THE BANNED is more than a song—it’s an anthem of survival, raw honesty, and the light that follows darkness.