Video premiere: Lucy & La Mer, ‘Tainted Love’

1
Lucy & La Mer
Lucy & La Mer

With sexual harassment in the music industry (and beyond) a hot-potato issue, singer-songwriter Lucy LaForge has directed a music video that addresses — and undresses — the matter of consent. The video is for Lucy & La Mer’s cover of the Soft Cell hit “Tainted Love,” a smoky, folk-jazz take on the song featuring harp, slide guitar, trumpet and baritone ukulele. LaForge’s hope, she says, is to “raise awareness around consent — specifically, how one’s clothing is not at fault.” The elegrant black-and-white video flashes between her band (Jon Lee Keenan, Neil Wogensen, Wesley Houdyshell, Gabe Martin, Karen Garcia and Brett Fromson), to a scene in which she visits a therapist (played by Tristan Scott Behrends), to the intrepretive dance of Cabaret Con-Sensual, a body-positive burlesque troupe that raises awareness for sexual assault. The dancers — Madeline Harris, Deneen Melody, Michelle LaBelle and Dzaniella Nani — boldly go where burlesque dancers go, but the reminder here is that no always means no.

||| Watch: The video for “Tainted Love”

||| Also: Download the song here: