Various Artists - Canto A Lo Divino

Canto A Lo Divino is the unique musical expression of the Chilean peasant world - a conversation with the divine nourished by Biblical and other sacred texts. It is communal music, played in packed rooms throughout the night on the 25-string guitarron, its ancient melodies transmitted through the 10-line decima form originating in Spain and found across the Caribbean, South America, and even into the Mississippi Delta.

Rooted in the remote Central Valley of Chile at the skirt of the mountains and following the slopes of the major rivers, the Canto tradition has persisted for centuries in the voices of hundreds of men and women who sing of saints, divine images, and angelitos (very young children who have died). The verses are also centered around daily life in the valley - labor and drought, family, animals, and plants. There are countless entonaciones (melodies) that define this region, its communities, and its unique worldview.

Mississippi Records is privileged to work with the Museo Campesino En Movimiento and their archive of hundreds of hours of intimate field recordings of the Canto music rarely, if ever, heard outside of the region.

Artwork is provided by another inhabitant of Chile’s Central Valley, a baker called Frederico Lohse, who brought divine visions from the Cantos to life, painted on reused flour bags.

Canto A Lo Divino celebrates the complexity and solemn, stunning beauty of this nocturnal, communal form of musical devotion.

Double vinyl LP comes housed in deluxe gatefold jacket with 8 pages of lyric translations and liner notes about the Canto tradition by researcher Danilo Petrovich.