When she was growing up, Reina del Cid didn’t anticipate a musical career. Now, she's releasing her third full-length album before embarking on cross-state adventure with Caravan du Nord, the annual showcase that brings top regional acts to towns across Greater Minnesota.

“I was picturing myself kind of going into English and being a professor or something like that,” Reina del Cid told The Current's Jill Riley in an interview this week. “But [the band] started writing music and playing around town and just experiencing how vibrant this scene is, and kind of over time started doing it full time.”

She released The Cooling in 2015 and Rerun City two years later; she’ll be adding more to that list as she and her band are preparing for their latest album release party at the Cedar Cultural Center tonight. The new record, Morse Code, was the first time they decided to collaborate with a producer.

“In the past we’ve only produced our own records and kind of lived in our own world with that, so it was really cool to get Matt [Patrick]’s perspective on the album,” Cordova said about the album recording experience. “He’s an incredible, creative designer and an incredible engineer.”

Tomorrow, Reina Del Cid will whisk off to the first stop of the odyssey with Caravan Du Nord: the Paramount Theater in Austin. Reina Del Cid is actually a Caravan Du Nord veteran; she opened for Har Mar Superstar at the Paramount Theater a few years ago.

“It’s really nice to come back and see all these small theaters and awesome cities in Minnesota,” she said. “There are just so many great pockets of art scenes that exist all over the state, and it’s nice to be able to kind of take that same show and play in different areas and meet these people that you usually don’t encounter in your everyday life as a musician here.”

Just before their busy upcoming weekend, the band recently took a trip to the North Shore of Lake Superior to shoot a music video in the Grand Marais area for “Goodbye Butterfly,” one of the songs on their new album. Shot and directed by Dan Huiting, the music video is a “love letter to my beautiful home state of Minnesota,” Reina del Cid said, complete with wanderlust footage of the lakefront. “It really features all the beauty of the North Shore and northern Minnesota, so I’m really excited to put that one out there.”

After their last performance with Caravan du Nord, which ends in mid-November, Reina Del Cid and her band will embark on their own national tour to the East Coast and farther north into Canada. “We’ve got a bunch of dates planned for the release tour and we’re bringing a whole six piece acoustic troupe with us this time,” she explained. “So we’ve got drums and dobros and all kinds of fun things.”