Following last year's dreamy synth-pop anthem "It's Okay To Cry," which revealed her face to the world for the first time, and its grimy follow-up single "Ponyboy," British producer and singer SOPHIE has just released a video for her latest track, "Faceshopping."
The instrumentals are harsh and mechanical as SOPHIE enunciates, "My face is the front of shop/ My face is the real shop front." The accompanying video, directed by SOPHIE and Aaron Chan, drives home the song's exploration of authenticity and personal autonomy in a world that allows and encourages bodily modification. As a disorienting light flashes across the screen, SOPHIE's face becomes a product that is inflated and spliced and distorted as if made from clay. Long instrumental interludes and hummed notes allow the surreal images of her face — intercut with quick shots of makeup, dewey skin, and Coca-Cola-inspired iconography — to really shine for the first half of the video. When an unexpected, passionate falsetto interlude begins half way through, it is a shimmering antithesis from the grating music that bookends it.
SOPHIE is known for her bold, genre-bending pop, and "Faceshopping" doesn't disappoint. She continues pushing the conversation of what sounds constitute popular music, what shapes and modifications determine an authentic a body, and how all of these factors are commodified in the fashion and music industries.
Watch the video, below: