diff --git a/.hgtags b/.hgtags
index 7fa4eb224..2d04bb17f 100644
--- a/.hgtags
+++ b/.hgtags
@@ -19,3 +19,6 @@ f3cd4c138c6f40dc324a23bf01c4c7d97766477e 1.0rc2
 f28ea9e2ef8d39913d79dbba73db280ff0740c50 v1.1.0-beta.2
 8f070ce28a7b33d8509b29a8dbe937109bbdbd21 v1.1.0-beta.3
 97f04ce252332dbda013cbc478d702d54a8fc1bd v1.1.0
+b3f7b5267a2f7b46b826d087421d7f4569211240 v1.2.0
+b3f7b5267a2f7b46b826d087421d7f4569211240 v1.2.0
+ecff182221ec32a9f6549ad3ce8d2ab4c3e5568a v1.2.0
diff --git a/beetsplug/mpdupdate.py b/beetsplug/mpdupdate.py
index 0360a45df..6138efca2 100644
--- a/beetsplug/mpdupdate.py
+++ b/beetsplug/mpdupdate.py
@@ -35,14 +35,16 @@ database_changed = False
 # easier.
 class BufferedSocket(object):
     """Socket abstraction that allows reading by line."""
-    def __init__(self, sep='\n'):
-        self.sock = socket.socket(socket.AF_INET, socket.SOCK_STREAM)
+    def __init__(self, host, port, sep='\n'):
+        if host[0] == '/':
+            self.sock = socket.socket(socket.AF_UNIX, socket.SOCK_STREAM)
+            self.sock.connect(host)
+        else:
+            self.sock = socket.socket(socket.AF_INET, socket.SOCK_STREAM)
+            self.sock.connect((host, port))
         self.buf = ''
         self.sep = sep
 
-    def connect(self, host, port):
-        self.sock.connect((host, port))
-
     def readline(self):
         while self.sep not in self.buf:
             data = self.sock.recv(1024)
@@ -67,8 +69,7 @@ def update_mpd(host='localhost', port=6600, password=None):
     """
     print('Updating MPD database...')
 
-    s = BufferedSocket()
-    s.connect(host, port)
+    s = BufferedSocket(host, port)
     resp = s.readline()
     if 'OK MPD' not in resp:
         print('MPD connection failed:', repr(resp))
diff --git a/docs/changelog.rst b/docs/changelog.rst
index d396a8c7a..6946745ca 100644
--- a/docs/changelog.rst
+++ b/docs/changelog.rst
@@ -1,8 +1,8 @@
 Changelog
 =========
 
-1.2.0 (in development)
-----------------------
+1.2.0 (June 5, 2013)
+--------------------
 
 There's a *lot* of new stuff in this release: new data sources for the
 autotagger, new plugins to look for problems in your library, tracking the
@@ -107,6 +107,8 @@ As usual, there were also lots of other great littler enhancements:
   Johannes Baiter.
 * The :ref:`fields-cmd` command shows template fields provided by plugins.
   Thanks again to Pedro Silva.
+* :doc:`/plugins/mpdupdate`: You can now communicate with MPD over a Unix
+  domain socket. Thanks to John Hawthorn.
 
 And a batch of fixes:
 
diff --git a/docs/plugins/mpdupdate.rst b/docs/plugins/mpdupdate.rst
index 492660106..dca41fd22 100644
--- a/docs/plugins/mpdupdate.rst
+++ b/docs/plugins/mpdupdate.rst
@@ -17,3 +17,8 @@ MPD server. You can do that using an ``mpdupdate:`` section in your
         password: seekrit
 
 With that all in place, you'll see beets send the "update" command to your MPD server every time you change your beets library.
+
+If you want to communicate with MPD over a Unix domain socket instead over
+TCP, just give the path to the socket in the filesystem for the ``host``
+setting. (Any ``host`` value starting with a slash is interpreted as a domain
+socket.)