Information/Write-up
Released May 27, 2022
Amanda Rheaume explores Métis history on 'The Spaces in Between'.
Throughout the album, spoken word interludes by Métis leader Tony Belcourt inform and expand upon the album’s themes. Rheaume introduced Belcourt’s contribution to the project with this trailer, released alongside “100 Years.” Amidst songs that explore Rheaume’s personal experience and perspective of identity, Belcourt’s statements ground and expand upon the album’s exploration and reckoning with the past and present.
“The interludes tell parts of the Métis history and experience,” Rheaume notes. “To me, we need to go back to the old ways, to our teachings, to understand where we are now. The Métis experience is often under-represented. It is my hope that this album and the interludes can shine a light on the complexities of mixed identity and offer comfort and belonging to anyone struggling to find and celebrate their place.
The Spaces In Between was produced and mixed by Hill Kourkoutis, recently nominated for JUNO Award Recording Engineer of the Year.
Produced by Hill Kourkoutis
Engineered by Julian Decorte at Canterbury Music Company (Toronto) and Hill Kourkoutis at The Lair (Barrie)
Mixed by Hill Kourkoutis
Mastered by Kristian Montano at Montano Mastering (Toronto)
“My people will sleep for a hundred years but when they awake, it will be the artists that give them back their spirit” - Louis Riel
16 NOVEMBER 2021 (TORONTO, ON) - Singer-songwriter Amanda Rheaume, a Citizen of the Métis Nation, shares new song, “100 Years." Rheaume’s song seeks to answer, for herself, complex questions about Métis identity and history. The song interrogates the colonial record and Rheaume’s place in the bigger picture. With "100 Years," Rheaume adds her voice to the ongoing work of retelling this story, as it should have been told, over a century ago.
Of the accompanying video, filmed on unceded Algonquin Anishinaabeg territory (Ottawa), Rheaume says, "It was a true pleasure to work with Sean Stiller (director) and Sage Wright (performer). Both Sean and Sage brought this song to life in a way I could never have imagined on my own. I have always had a deep connection and love for the Kitchissippi River. I’ve often stood at the edge of the water and seen and felt my ancestors traveling down the river towards the great meeting place of the Akikodjiwan Falls. When I told Sean this, there was no question we had to shoot the video in Ottawa. This video speaks to Spirit calling and finding the courage to answer that call - finding the strength and the courage to break through the heavy weight imposed by the colonial agenda, and second to that, breaking through the layers of the limiting self beliefs caused by colonialism. I believe that artists hold the ability to awaken our spirits and a new path forward."
“100 Years” is out today, the anniversary of the execution of Louis Riel. The song is the first single from an album due in Spring 2022 via Ishkōdé Records/Universal Music Canada, the country's leading music company.
ABOUT AMANDA RHEAUME
Amanda Rheaume’s rootsy, guitar-driven ballads introduce crucial dimensions to the world of Heartland Rock. In a genre characterized by anthems of underdogs, assumptions and unfair advantages, Rheaume’s sound and story crucially and radically expand the boundaries, geographic and cultural, to make space for new perspectives on resistance and resilience. A Citizen of the Métis Nation, and an active and proud member of the LGBTQ2S+ community, Rheaume’s music is indeed from the heart, and the land.
First a songwriter, Rheaume comes from a long line of tireless, transformational organizers and activists, and carries this lineage forward in her ever-growing role as a crucial builder of Indigenous music infrastructure and community. From the International Indigenous Music Summit, to newly-founded Ishkode Records, and the National Indigenous Music Office, the goal of raising Indigenous sovereignty in the music industry drives all of Rheaume’s work.
Rheaume (she/her) has released 5 full-length albums over a period of 15 years, a self-managed career that has traveled countless tours and milestones. 2013’s Keep a Fire was nominated for a JUNO Award and won a Canadian Folk Music Award for Indigenous Songwriter of the Year. With a new single “100 Years,” a driving, surging Copperhead Road-esque journey through a wilfully, woefully misrepresented chapter in a violent colonial timeline, Rheaume makes a powerful statement about history and identity.
About Ishkōdé Records
Ishkōdé Records is a new Indigenous women-owned label created to foster and amplify Indigenous voices. Ishkōdé Records arrives to advocate for Indigenous artists, songs and stories in the commercial music landscape. Led by artists, organizers and activists Anishinaabekwe ShoShona Kish (Digging Roots) and solo artist Amanda Rheaume, Citizen of the Metis Nation of Ontario, Ishkōdé approaches the independent label operations through the lens of women and artist entrepreneurship, long-standing industry experience and cultural and ancestral processes. The word Ishkōdé means fire in Anishinaabemowin.
No Comments