The Aboriginal music scene is expanding both in Quebec and the rest of Canada. This is excellent news because what happens culturally is sometimes a harbinger of what’s to come socially and economically.
Healer, the debut album from Wendat singer-songwriter Eadsé, following an EP in 2021, is further testimony to this. Released on the Musique Nomade label, this album is all about healing, as its title suggests. But it’s not just about native healing.
Eadsé, aka Anne-Marie Gros-Louis-Houle, experienced post-partum depression as a young mother. This album embodies an odyssey of different healings between shadow and light. Eadsé sings in French, English and Wendat, the almost-forgotten language her people are trying to relearn. Musically, Healer is very wide-ranging, perhaps a little too much so. At times, very meditative folk; at others, R&B and soul, with a nod to hip hop even, thanks to the participation of Sensei H. You can sense that the young songwriter is searching for herself, exploring different avenues.
But this former citizen of Wendake who now lives in Montreal, named Tiohtià:ke by the First Nations, undeniably possesses a soul that touches our souls. Healer isn’t perfect. But it’s a first opus that hints at enormous potential. Eadsé is far from finished singing and exploring!
