Picking Up the Pieces
by Juno Award-Winning Singer
Brenda MacIntyre, Medicine Song Woman
This album is bursting with love, and fueled by the experience of grief.
Earthy. Melodic. Enchanting. Healing.
The music can help you with:
Grief Chronic Pain Spiritual Connection Grounding
Energy and Expansion Healing Emotional Release
In memory of Brenda MacIntyre’s son, Quinn Taylor, this album features 2 songs inspired by Quinn’s trap music. The album weaves between indigenous hand drum singing and a fusion of hand drumming, roots reggae, hip hop, funk and soul. Brenda’s raw power vocals range from an edgy soulful tone to a tone that brings a healing softness.
This album was created in ceremony to allow the songs to be infused with specific intentions, emotions and healing energy. This infusion allows the listener to feel love, connection and joy alongside feelings of grief, chronic pain, trauma or an identity crisis.
During this Global Pandemic we have all felt loss in different ways. The loss of a loved one, a job, a routine or even just a sense of freedom. This loss triggers a lot of emotions that can be difficult to deal with. My music will help you work through the feelings that COVID-19 and the state of the world have brought to the surface with more flow than resistance. We are all feeling this in a different way and music can help many of us connect with these feelings in a unique way to deal with them.
These songs encompass what grief brings: the messiness, shock, pain, anger, sadness, and love that has nowhere to go. As you listen you will be guided on a path to help you acknowledge all of the emotions and experiences you are having. You will be given permission to allow yourself to have joy, laughter and fun, sometimes right along with the grief, or maybe later – only when you’re ready. Piece by piece, moment by moment, song by song, you will be guided to see what is on the other side of life after loss, and what is in between. The idea is to create space to feel everything you need to feel and gradually feel more and more of the good feelings.
Picking Up the Pieces is about falling apart and then picking up the pieces of yourself and your life one piece at a time. You get to choose where to fit those pieces, which ones to pick up, which ones to leave behind and which pieces need extra love or support.
Album Release Date: RELEASED Friday September 13, 2019, just before the Harvest Moon. 13 songs. 13 moons. Friday the 13, my personal lucky day!
What’s on the album?
7 Indigenous Roots Reggae Healing Songs with a little Funk & R&B: Before Brenda became an internationally renowned indigenous hand drum singer, she was a Juno award-winning conscious reggae/rap/R&B singer in the 80’s and 90’s. This album brings back that vibe, while honouring Brenda’s Anishnaabe culture. All of the reggae/funk/R&B songs include some Anishnaabemowin (Ojibwe language) lyrics, translated by Maanii Taylor of Curve Lake First Nation.
6 Hand Drum Healing Songs, including Brenda’s most popular hand drum song “Healing Song” that she channelled for her son Quinn when he was 14. This song is sung by hand drummers and drum groups across North America. Now it will be featured on this album, along with 5 other new original hand drumming songs.
BONUS! As always, you will receive a downloadable e-book with the lyrics and teachings of all the songs… and this time, I’m giving you a hard copy lyric booklet with the CD.
If you order 10 or more copies, you’ll get one more for FREE. Contact us to get special bulk pricing for 10 or more.
The Toronto Star got it right.
The front page headline on May 27, 2019 reads “She has to say ‘I love you’ in a song”.
All-Star Music Team
- Produced & Arranged by Errol Starr Francis, Juno Award-Winning Singer-Songwriter and Producer, with 3 singles that reached the Top 25 in Canada.
- Lead Vocals, Songwriting and Hand Drumming by Brenda MacIntyre aka Medicine Song Woman, Juno Award-winning singer, who has also been nominated for a Canadian Reggae Music Award, Canadian Independent Music Award, Canadian Folk Music Award and Indigenous Music Award.
- Bass by 6-time Canadian Reggae Music Award Winner Linford (LA) Allen (Marcia Griffiths, John Holt, Freddy McGregor, Rita Marley and other reggae greats)
- Drums (drum kit) by Juno Award Winner Odel Johnson (Messenjah, Sly & Robbie, Dennis Brown, Scientist, other reggae greats)
- Guitar by Juno Award-winner Carl Harvey (Messenjah), Tim Stokes-Rees (Cyndi Lauper, Teenage Head) and Juno Award Winner Errol Starr Francis
- Saxophone and Flute by Isax InJah, legendary internationally renowned reggae and jazz sax player! (Sly & Robbie, Etana, Dennis Brown, Morgan Heritage, other reggae greats)
- All of my reggae musicians have played for many reggae greats, like Marcia Griffiths, Sly & Robbie and Dennis Brown.
- Hand Drumming and Spoken Word Backup by Bryden Gwiss, shortlisted for the Juno Award for Indigenous Music Album of the Year at the Juno Awards of 2017 and nominated for the Best Hand Drum Album of the year at the 2017 Indigenous Music Awards.
- Big Drum by Cree and Métis Healer/Counsellor, Heather Clear Wind
Did you watch the video yet?
My son Quinn is in the video (yes, from the Spirit World!). That Himalayan salt lamp he bought me keeps flashing throughout the video and guess what? It NEVER flashes except when I’m talking about my son. We even tested it, pushing the table it’s on, messing with the cord, whatever. It doesn’t flash. But I had asked Quinn to make it flash for the video and there you go. In the studio, we had unexplained lights flashing so intensely and so much at one point that we were all looking around trying to figure out where the lights were even coming from, and nobody could figure it out. Then I knew. My son has been making lights flash very obviously (even to the beat sometimes) ever since he left the planet. His beautiful energy is embedded into this album.
Download, Stream or Get your CD today!
If you wish to order more than 10 CDs, please contact us here for a bulk deal.
