Minnesota folk duo Maygen and the Birdwatcher, anchored by singer-songwriters and guitarists Maygen Lacey and Noah Neumann, will release their album, Moonshine, on October 8.

Related:
• Meet Maygen and the Birdwatcher, Aug. 13, 2021

In the run-up to the album's release, Maygen and the Birdwatcher have released the singles "Antidote," "Full Moons" and "Jigsaw." This week, Maygen and the Birdwatcher are debuting a new video for the song "Dominé," another track from the forthcoming album.

The video, directed by Tim Torabpour, was filmed in the Chisago Lakes area, a community located 45 minutes north of the Twin Cities that comprises five towns nestled among several lakes and wooden areas. Critically for the band, it is the area where Neumann grew up. "I think the landscape matches well with our vibe and sound," Neumann says.

The song "Dominé," as Neumann describes it, refers "to a relationship I think most of us experience at some point in life or have seen someone go through."

Neumann says he played around with the French and Latin meanings of the word Dominé — as in dominated, defeated, vanquished — but hints that it may also bear resemblance to the name of the person who he is addressing in the song. "I try to keep it more open ended though," Neumann insists. "It's only a little autobiographical, and I want people to be able to inject their own experiences into the song and see what they get out of it."

Although the themes of the song may be heavy, the tone of the music is lighter, as is the video, which features an almost summer-camp setting where Neumann finds himself defeated by kids at various camp competitions like potato-sack race, arm wrestling and tug of war. "It was definitely on purpose to pair serious and somber lyrics with happier and fun sounds," Neumann explains. "We tried to stay away from feeling so heavy for the fact that most of life doesn't exist in the high highs or low lows, it's' somewhere in the middle. I think if you're experiencing a relationship like what we're singing about, it probably doesn't feel all bad all the time. Mostly it just feels 'complicated'."

Intercut with the scenes of Neumann getting bested by the kids at camp are scenes of the band, gathered around a woodpile, performing the song. Along with Neumann and Lacey, viewers see the rest of the Maygen and the Birdwatcher lineup: Ethan and Jesse Moravec (formerly of Sawtooth Brothers) on upright bass and fiddle, and Nik Pellinen on banjo.

Maygen and the Birdwatcher will celebrate the release of the album Moonshine with a show at Icehouse in Minneapolis on Sunday, Oct. 10. Moonshine is releasing on New York-based label AntiFragile Music.

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