Press release –
JUNO-nominated Americana artist Amanda Rheaume is celebrating the first anniversary of her album The Truth We Hold with the release of a deluxe edition, out now on Ishkōdé Records.
“In May 2025, the band and I performed in Sault Ste Marie in the city square, which is exactly where some of the original Métis/Halfbreed River Lots used to be before the RH Treaty was signed,” shares Rheaume. “I can’t tell you how special it was to bring the songs and stories from my album, several of them about Métis community members from Sault Ste Marie, to this exact place. Some of the grandchildren of those I wrote the songs about were in the audience! We recorded the show and are releasing the live tracks on this deluxe version of my latest record.”
The Truth We Hold (Deluxe) features four live versions of album tracks recorded in Sault Ste. Marie, the birthplace of the Métis Nation of Ontario, where settlements followed a river-lot pattern. This is one of many locations Rheaume visited to gather stories for the original album. These performances, combined with personal interludes from the stories’ key figures, create a collection of remarkable depth and cultural significance for future generations. The album also includes a live version of “#44,” recorded at Blue Rodeo’s studio, The Woodshed.
The deluxe edition highlights the track “Flossie’s,” an upbeat anthem perfect for a kitchen party, complete with an original line dance. Rheaume will bring this dance to audiences during her upcoming April tour of Germany and Austria.
For The Truth We Hold (originally released April 11, 2025), Rheaume travelled across the homelands, visiting communities and individuals whose collective experiences make up a living history of Métis joy, strength and struggle. From Northwest Ontario to rural Saskatchewan, the album explores moments that have shaped Métis history, from landmark court battles to silenced injustices, to kitchen parties and community strength, transmitting a message of interconnectedness that dissolves geographical and historical distances.
Rheaume is kicking off an exciting spring with a nomination for Indigenous Songwriter of the Year at the Canadian Folk Music Awards in Calgary next week, where she will perform at the Songs and Stories show on April 9. Following the awards, she heads to Germany and Austria for her international tour in April and May, before returning to perform at the Four Winds Music Festival and Do West Fest Toronto this summer, continuing to share her celebrated music with audiences near and far.
What’s The Story about Amanda Rheaume?
(pronounced Uh-man-duh Ray-ome)
Amanda Rheaume’s music tells stories of Métis resilience and resistance, spanning centuries. With a gutsy, guitar-driven style and lively Métis fiddle, her heartland rock preserves history, sharing moments of Métis joy, strength, and struggle. Her latest album, The Truth We Hold (April 2025), explores pivotal events in Métis history, from landmark court cases to silenced injustices, emphasizing interconnectedness across time and place.
Rheaume is a 2024 Spirit of Folk Award recipient, the 2023 Canadian Folk Music Award winner for Indigenous Songwriter of the Year, and Capital Music Awards’ Album of the Year honoree. With six albums released, she’s also a key advocate for Indigenous music. As co-founder of Ishkōdé Records, the International Indigenous Music Summit, and the Indigenous Music Office, Rheaume is dedicated to fostering Indigenous sovereignty through music, ensuring its stories endure and inspire.
What’s The Story about Ishkōdé Records?
Ishkōdé Records is an Indigenous women-owned music company founded to ignite and amplify Indigenous voices, songs, and stories. Founded by artists, organizers, and activists Anishinaabekwe ShoShona Kish (Digging Roots) and solo artist Amanda Rheaume (Citizen of the Métis Nation of Ontario), Ishkōdé approaches the music industry through a lens of artist- and women-led entrepreneurship, rooted in cultural strength and long-standing industry experience.
Launched in 2021 and based in Tkaronto (Toronto), Ishkōdé Records—meaning “fire” in Anishinaabemowin—has quickly become home to a powerful roster of emerging and established Indigenous artists. Founders of the International Indigenous Music Summit, Kish and Rheaume, lead the label in its animating principle to raise resistance to colonial industry structures while building a new, values-driven space for Indigenous creativity to thrive.
In 2025, Kish and Rheaume were featured on The Hollywood Reporter’s second annual Power List, highlighting trailblazers who are fighting back, breaking through and building the future of film, TV and music north of the border. In 2023, Ishkōdé was named Organization of the Year by Women in Music Canada and received CIMA’s “Make It Stronger” Award, affirming its impact across the industry. Ishkōdé Records’ distribution partner is Universal Music Canada.
https://www.amandarheaume.com/
The Truth We Hold Deluxe Tracklisting
I Won’t Hide
Dolores Intro
One Of These Days
Unforgettable
#44 Interlude
#44
Distant Drum (feat. Alyssa Delbaere-Sawchuk)
Better Part Of Town
Dream If You Want To
Down The Line
Big John McNeil (feat. Alyssa Delbaere-Sawchuk)
Flossie’s
Annie’s Whip (e)
Can’t Make Us Gone
Steps Of The Old Ones (feat. Alyssa Delbaere-Sawchuk)
#44 (Live from The Woodshed)
I Won’t Hide (Live From The River Lots)
One of These Days (Live From The River Lots)
Whiskey Before Breakfast (feat. Alyssa Delbaere-Sawchuk) (Live From The River Lots)
Flossie’s (Live From The River Lots)
