The story behind Romy’s ecstatic new video ‘Always Forever’

When Romy Madley Croft, guitarist and vocalist of The xx, enlisted Charlotte Wells, writer and director of 2022’s critically-acclaimed Aftersun, to direct the music video for her new solo single “Always Forever”, one clear aesthetic objective emerged: “It’s just razzle, dazzle dance,” Wells laughs.

It seems only appropriate, given the video directly follows Madley Croft's breakout solo album Mid Air – a record that whole-heartedly embraced the euphoric dance floors of London’s queer clubs, while metaphorically shedding the monochromatic palette that closely defined The xx. Though released as a standalone single, “Always Forever”, exists as a kaleidoscopic extension of the hedonism of Mid Air hedonism, while also speaking to the wider emotional journey towards love and self acceptance chronicled on the album.

Madley Croft began working on ‘Always Forever’ with producer Fred Again during the creation of Mid Air, building an ode to a realistic yet unconditional love around an interpolation of the 90s pop classic “I Love You Always Forever” by Donna Lewis. Though the track didn’t make the album, the rapturous reception it’s received at the spattering of DJ sets and live shows it’s been played at since signalled a wider desire for it’s release.

The video is Wells’ debut as a music video director, in a collaboration that comes after years of the pair’s creative paths almost intertwining. Wells, a longtime fan of The xx, reached out to Madley Croft during the early days of Aftersun’s conception, in the hopes she could contribute music to the film. Though she was deep in production for Mid Air and thus unable to make it work, they stayed in touch, eventually meeting over Zoom once the film was complete.

“I felt very emotionally connected to Aftersun on many levels,” Romy says, recalling the first conversation she had with Wells. It was mere moments after she’d watched a preview of the film for the first time, and she still had tears drying on her face. “I have memories of going on holiday with my dad when we were both grieving my mum who died when I was 11. That film helped me really connect and empathise with how he might have been feeling. It's such a gift to have that epiphany that I really got from Aftersun.” From that first call they discussed working on a music video together one day, but the stars never aligned until now.

The video begins with two female dancers in what appears to be a black room, but is slowly revealed to be an entirely reflective space. Through dance, they navigate the turbulence and joy of a relationship – twisting through a hall of mirrors that simultaneously acts as a visual ode to the disorientation that comes with giving yourself up to another person, while evoking the infinity of a love that lasts ‘always forever’. In line with the elation embedded onto the grooves of Mid Air, the video constantly collapses into moments of candid joy – manifesting in the form of shy smiles from both the dancers’ and Madley Croft, who unexpectedly finds herself as the video’s star. It was a step out of her comfort zone, she admits, having never felt confident enough to fully lean into popstar status prior.

This gallant entry into the spotlight was thanks to encouragement from Wells, who had endeavoured to pay homage to Donna Lewis’s own video while uniquely capturing the nuance of Madley Croft’s verses. To do so, she assembled the Aftersun film team, including cinematographer Gregory Oke and choreographer Celia Rowlson-Hall, who was behind the film’s devastating rave sequences. “I was thinking about a romantic relationship,” Wells says, outlining the story told through the choreography. “That push and pull of emotional needs and expectations and being there for somebody when they need support and they don't know it or they're unable to accept it.”

Below, Madley Croft and Wells discuss the inspiration, visual references and styling of “Always Forever”, as well as the parallels between this music video and Aftersun.

THE BRIEF

Charlotte Wells: I definitely felt the weight of responsibility to make something that Romy felt represented her song, and the feeling within it. [Making film] is about discovering what images come to mind when you think of something or you hear something. And with this one, for whatever reason, I just saw dance.

So much of my work so far has been quite serious. There’s always been joy in it, I think that’s an essential part of it, but it has often been joy for the purpose of expressing a deeper pain and having that element of contrast. So it was just really fun to be able to lean into the joy this time.

Romy Madley Croft: With this project I was keen to try and push myself into the more traditional, eyes-to-camera pop video, where there is that connection with the listener. Charlie remembered those things and helped me do it in a great way which I’m really grateful for, because that was the intention but sometimes shyness has taken me off that course.

THE AESTHETIC

Charlotte Wells: I thought, how do you visualise ‘Always Forever’? What does that look like? I started to think about mirrors, which is a motif that runs through the work that I do, especially with Gregory Oke the cinematographer. We love to play off reflections and the uncertainty of that and the ways in which you can question reality or time using mirrors.

We had this idea of building the mirrors up, so you begin with this image that you can’t even tell is a mirror or a reflection, and then we gradually increase them knowing that we had this space that was almost like a Yayoi Kusama-inspired infinity room. And then after that, it was about where we could go visually and bringing it back down until it’s just [the dancers] in the darkness again.

THE INFLUENCE OF 90s MUSIC VIDEOS

Charlotte Wells: I spent a week watching music videos from 1996 and 1997 which is really an assured way to put anybody in an excellent mood. There were a few Texas videos. There’s one in particular that is a spectacularly audacious rip off of Chungking Express – eventually Christopher Doyle, [Wong Kar-wai’s cinematographer] shot another video for the band.

Romy Madley Croft: Charlotte sent me some references to these Texas videos. I loved it because there’s a calmness and a performance element in these videos where you’re really with Sharleen Spiteri but she’s not doing a million things and dance routines and stuff. I thought it was such a good reference. And I also loved that Charlotte wanted to reference the original video for the Donna Lewis track.

Charlotte Wells: Part of the original spark was finding a way to reference [Donna Lewis’s video]. That video is saturated in this yellowy, beige light and she's wearing clothes to match. But then also there’s these sections in darkness. The sections of Romy in absolute darkness are a very strong allusion to that video, including the white flashes as you change frame size.

THE ROLE OF CATHARSIS

Romy Madley Croft: The process that we both had is cathartic, because we both had to do something quite out of our comfort zone here. Both Aftersun and my album were about acknowledging and dealing with things that are not easy in terms of emotion, but this was more cathartic in practice, in the way of pushing ourselves.

The video to me feels quite dreamlike and it took me out of myself into a pop music world that I really loved. It connects me to the song, but it also takes me on a journey, so it felt like a different cathartic experience than I’d had so far with this project.

Charlotte Wells: It’s funny because on the one hand, I felt like we were doing something really new with the mirrors and then as we were prepping it, I suddenly realised the parallel to that rave space in Aftersun. In a lot of ways it is a much more positive, less desperate version of it but it still ends, I realised, identically, with these two people in darkness. It’s as though this mirrored space is their emotional experience.

Celia [Rowlson-Hall, the choreographer] and I were really deliberate in plotting out what we imagined this relationship between these two people to be and how it evolved through each section of the dance. So it was really nice to think about a different type of relationship, having spent eight years on this father and daughter story.

I’ve done other short form things since Aftersun, but kind of more commercial projects. This really felt like the first one that I had to put myself into again, and it felt amazing. The feeling of being back on set with people I love was incredibly inspiring. It definitely lit that fire that I felt like needed.

THE STYLING

Romy Madley Croft: It was amazing to have Gucci work with us on this. Sabato [De Sarno, Gucci’s creative director] has been really supportive of my project. When he worked at Valentino, it was the first time I did a soundtrack for a fashion show, and I really loved that experience. It was very different for me to try and soundtrack someone else’s work. We kept in touch when he went to Gucci so to have him involved in this video was really cool.

In the menswear collection there was this vest made out of crystals that just really stood out and felt on theme with the mirrors. In The xx I only ever wore black and in this project I’ve been stepping out of that and wearing a lot of neon colours. That material and the reflective dynamic of it felt kind of like a reference to it not just being a black t-shirt. They made it in a custom shape which was a bit more me than the tiny vest that was on the runway, so I was grateful for that.

Charlotte Wells: It was surprisingly hard to integrate colour once we had the mirror space. And one thing I really loved about [the outfit], especially in the black space, is it almost acts like a prism. It just reflects all of these amazing colours in the darkness. It was really, really special.

THE TAKEAWAY MESSAGE

Romy Madley Croft: I do love seeing the representation of two women in a relationship with each other. This project was really about having a love story portrayed, whether it’s in the video or in my album. Lesbian love being more normalised in pop music is so important to me, and that’s a big part of this video. I guess you can really lean into what you want the relationship between the two dancers to be, but for me, I just love seeing that and I’m happy that there’s some representation happening.

Charlotte Wells: I wanted to do something different and subvert both the pop music video but also the filmed dance video, and try to find something that stood on its own while taking inspiration from both of those things. I hope people feel what it is we’re trying to communicate and I really do hope that we managed to do something new. But more than anything, I hope people enjoy watching it.

Watch the video above.