Just days before the release of her latest album, Arcadia, Ramona Lisa puts out a preview in the form of a new video for the song “Dominic”. The latest alter ego of Chairlift’s Caroline Polachek, Ramona Lisa formed only earlier this year and has only released two singles to date.
Just in time for early summer, Ramona Lisa’s newest video is a thing of scenic beauty. Mostly featuring Polachek as she drifts down a river in a canoe, the video takes us on a tour through rolling hills, pretty fields and through a forest lake on a sunny day. The sprightly, but still dreamy music is the perfect complement to what lots of people are dreaming of this time of year: open river and a pretty sky on a lazy summer day. The video was filmed in the Florida Everglades, and crew members say the Go-Pro filming was often interrupted by the alligators that wouldn’t stay away from the camera boat. Polachek described the experience in an interview with Vogue.
“It’s hard to pick any one song on a pastoral album to get devoted to the color green, but ‘Dominic’ was that one. It’s a song about a sweet fling that quietly finds its own way out the door without having to be asked, like a brief stop at a green oasis that’s not the final destination, but beautiful. For the video, I wanted to skip over spring in NYC and go straight into the belly of summer, deep into the Florida everglades. The swamp really goes on and on and on out there, like primeval earth. At first I was very nervous about the alligators drifting in sneaky circles around our boats, and even had to hit one repeatedly over the head to get it to let go of my paddle, but by day two I found them elegant and intriguing, like the reptile versions of cats,” Polachek said.
This may be Polachek’s first album as Ramona Lisa, but since she and Aaron Pfenning formed Chairlift in 2005, she’s collaborated with a lot of other big names. She’s been featured in songs by Washed Out and Holy Ghost! and has appeared in Class Actress and Telepathe music videos. She even co-produced a song that wound up on one of Beyonce’s latest albums.
Check out what will probably be the last preview of Arcadia before it’s released on Tuesday, the video for “Dominic.”