Daily Dose: Daughter of Swords, “Dawnbreaker”
Photo by Kendall Bailey Atwater Music Features Daughter of Swords
Daily Dose is your daily source for the song you absolutely, positively need to hear every day. Curated by the Paste Music Team.
Mountain Man’s Alexandra Sauser-Monnig is stepping out on her own with her debut solo album, titled Dawnbreaker, also her first full-length under the Daughter of Swords name. It’s out June 28 on Nonesuch Records, and the beautiful first single/title track arrived Tuesday with a highly compatible accompanying video. Watch it below.
“Dawnbreaker” is an airy acoustic dream rumbling with chords so warm and inviting you’ll want to sink into them like a bath. Sauser-Monnig, who wrote many of Dawnbreaker’s 10 tracks while anticipating the dissolution of a relationship, sees life mirrored in nature, likening herself to “a white rose,” “red hawk,” “hollow reed” or even “just a leaf” at different points in the song. The coinciding visuals (directed by D.L. Anderson) are perfectly timed snapshots of what looks like a lovely outdoor respite, even if it is just all a dream.
Here’s Sauser-Monnig on creating the sunny new track:
“Dawnbreaker” is about waking to the day beautifully breaking around you, and waking also to the realization that the life you’ve been leading is breaking with it. The version of ‘Dawnbreaker’ that is on the record was one of the first takes recorded of the whole record. It wasn’t really intended to be the final version of the song, but as the rest of the record came together, we realized that the rawness of that first take embodied the emotional quality that the record wanted to end on.
Sauser-Monnig co-produced the record with Sylvan Esso’s Nick Sanborn.
Again, you can watch the video for the Dawnbreaker title track below, followed by Daughter of Swords’ recent Paste Studio session recorded during SXSW. Keep scrolling for the album art and tracklist.
Dawnbreaker Album Art:
Dawnbreaker Tracklist:
01. Fellows
02. Gem
03. Fields of Gold
04. Shining Woman
05. Grasses
06. Easy Is Hard
07. Rising Sun
08. Long Leaf Pine
09. Human
10. Dawnbreaker