A rejected female android navigates the science-fiction architecture of downtown Los Angeles in the dreamy video for Rainbow Arabia’s new track, “Lacking Risk.” The idea came as a response to the robot prostitutes and wife substitutes that frequent the sci-fi genre. “What happens when they are made redundant in an ever-increasing hi-tech world? I have a hard time believing a female android would be soulless,” says the video’s director Jennifer Juniper Stratford. “So here she is in futuristic Los Angeles, processing, searching, and refusing to be redundant.” The track is taken from Rainbow Arabia’s second album, FM Sushi, recorded under the influence of visionary 1980s artists such as Tangerine Dream and Art of Noise. “We were keen on city lights at night and retro-futuristic stuff when we were making the record,” says the band’s Danny Preston. “That’s why Jennifer was a perfect fit.” Stratford has collaborated with LA lo-fi stars Geneva Jacuzzi, Ariel Pink and John Maus, and her fascination with SF goes back to her lifelong love of Star Trek: The Next Generation, Dr Who and the novels of Philip K. Dick. Today’s gynoid protagonist is played by the band’s singer and wife of Danny, Tiffany Preston, who was shot over the course of three nights, with a further three put aside for the filming of the buildings. The video was made on a shoestring budget, so most locations were shot at night and without a permit. “On the final night, two security guards caught us red handed,” says Stratford. “As they escorted us out, one turned to me and said, ‘I feel terrible doing this. I know all about the thrill of guerrilla filmmaking—I went to film school.’”