London’s ROCH is not your typical alt-pop artist. Whimsical and mysterious, she seeks to acquire diverse perspectives and serve them back to us on a gentle sonic plate. Her newest single “All Time Favourite Girl” assesses the disparaging office spaces women occupy, and the relationships they form within them. Accompanied by a starkly animated video (YONK Studios), this is a delicately woven story with an emphatic message.
Set in a grey office space, it showcases pregnant mannequins as they slowly maneuver through different motions, reacting to invisible changes and emotional shifts around them. ROCH explains that "the office space determines how they interact with each other. Throughout the video they come together as a big team, and rely on each other to prop themselves up.”
While most music videos serve to complement a song, either by visualizing the story or personifying the artist, this is a rare case where the video and the song form a dependent relationship, unable to separate one from the other. The track is slow and deliberate, laden with lucid synths and a harmonious blend of spoken word and softly crooning vocals. The gentle, bordering-on-dark production seems to slow down time, matching its reverb drums to a heart beat. Alongside the video, it all lines up to deliver a divergently philosophical experience, reminding us all that true personal elevation can only be reached through the support of many lifting hands.
