JERUSALEM by Emahoy Tsege Mariam Gebru lands on this planet on April 14, 2023. To celebrate, we are donating 20 test pressings of the forthcoming LP with all proceeds going to Doctors Without Borders in Ethiopia, which is helping families displaced by the current war in Tigray. 

You get:

• Beautiful two-color silkscreened jackets (printed on both sides) designed and pressed up by Corum at Psychic Sounds

• Riso insert of song notes

• Be the first to get this revelatory new album of Emahoy’s piano compositions, including the first widely released track of Emahoy’s vocals. 

To get your copy and donate, be one of the first 20 to complete an order at THIS LINK   

You can contribute a minimum of $55 and max of as much as you’d like.

*** NOTE: MEMBERS OF OUR COMMUNITY SUPPORTED RECORDS CLUB (CSR) ARE GUARANTEED A COPY OF JERUSALEM. IF YOU ARE IN THE CSR AND WOULD LIKE A TEST PRESSING INSTEAD, PLEASE WRITE US AT CSR@MISSISSIPPIRECORDS.NET

Interested in joining the CSR? To ensure you get a copy of every Mississippi release no matter how small the pressing, as well as distributed titles like the forthcoming Cairo Soul Vol 9, CHECK HERE ***

APRIL 8th

TOODY COLE + JENNY DON'T AND THE SPURS

A retrospective of music released on Mississippi Records by Fred and Toody Cole

Featuring -

Toody Cole w/ Jenny Don't And The Spurs

Jenny Don't And The Spurs (full set)

Cruise Control

DJ Erin Yankee

TICKETS

RESCHEDULED

OFF THE CHARTS

SONG POEM DOCUMENTARY AND CONTEST IS HAPPENING TOMORROW MARCH 23RD!!!

7:30 PM AT THE HOLLYWOOD THEATER

GET YOUR TICKETS HERE!

BODIKHUU ALBUM RELEASE!

This Friday, March 24, we release Mongolian producer Bodikhuu’s homage to Tokyo, a city he’s never seen, conjured up through the music he samples. Read this great review from Bandcamp here.

CANTO A LO DIVINO

On May 5th, Mississippi will release a double album of sacred music from the Central Valley of Chile. We’re proud to collaborate with the Museo Campesino en Movimiento (MUCAM), a seriously inspirational organization that has been documenting the music of these remote hills and valleys for over a decade.

Below, we interview Danilo Petrovich, who, alongside Daniel González, recorded the stunning music you’ll hear on the record…

Hear two tracks from the release here.

MRI-137 Various - Canto A Lo Divino 2xLP
Release date: May 12, 2023

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.

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 range from gory apocalypse to 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. This is powerful music - spend some time with it and the rewards begin to unfurl.

Photos courtesy of Danilo Petrovich. Interview by Cyrus Moussavi, translated by Maria Barrios.

Cyrus: What does a Canto A Lo Divino ceremony feel like? Give us a sense of how this music is played, for whom, what the relationship is between performer and audience…

Danilo Petrovich: Every year on November first, the image of the Virgin  del Palo Colorado emerges to visit the communities scattered amongst the many small ravines of the Valle de Quilimarí. The statue of the Virgin stays for one or two nights at various homes, finally completing its tour in mid-March. This circuit is managed by the demandero de la virgen, to whom communities must apply well in advance to request a visit from the Virgin.

The canto a lo divino ceremony that takes place at night, after the workday. As night falls, the singers arrive at the home where the statue of the Virgen is being housed at the time.They gather around the figure and the canto begins. The organization of the canto is collective. If there are a lot of singers, they form a circle, intercalating their voices in turns, while one cantor plays guitar or guitarron for everyone. This produces a sometimes very long, very poetic and complex canto. The people who are not singing, like family and friends, gather round the cantores and listen carefully and in silence to the canto. It is a very intimate and peaceful ceremony. Many times, the participants fall asleep listening to the cantos. To express their gratitude, the family hosting makes dinner for everyone. The canto keeps going all night, oftentimes until dawn. 

VIDEO: Virgin of Merced hosted in the small town of Chalco, 2012

CM: How did you first hear Canto A Lo Divino? What drew you to the music? 

DP: In my house, we used to listen to a (now defunct) radio station called “Radio Umbral,” which was associated with the political left and played Chilean music. I believe it was there when I first heard, when I was very little, a metallic sound of strings that caught my ear. Back then, I did not know what it was. Now I think it must have been the sound of a [25-stringed] Chilean guitarrón, the main instrument in canto a lo divino. 

My maternal grandparents lived in a village on the coast of Chile called Los Vilos. All my life, I went there during the summer. When I started college, I became interested in what was going on in the inner parts of the valleys, towards the mountains of that region. It was there that I found out about the celebration of the Virgen del Palo Colorado. Each night of that celebration, the people sing to the divine.

The autonomous way that this celebration happened, not associated with the church, or priests, caught my attention. It was an intimate celebration amongst families and neighbors. 

CM: How did you gain access to the world of Canto A Lo Divino? What is your relationship with the artists? 

DP: Daniel González and I started regularly attending ceremonies of canto a lo divino every weekend for almost ten years. Because the canto takes place at night, there is a lot of time to chat, tell stories, and share. That’s how we became friends with a lot of cantores and cantoras and the families who hosted. We also went there for barbecues and other food-related gatherings. In general, this region is very welcoming and we love eating a lot.

CM: How do the musicians and community feel about this music being released in a larger way? What is their hope for it? What is yours?

DP: I think they feel proud that this music can be heard in other parts of the world. As MUCAM, we have had a do-it-yourself politic of restitution that involves bringing back the recordings we made (in CDs, DVDs, and pen drives) to the communities we worked with. Many times, it was even the raw material. That restitution process also involved books, records, photos, etc. This is the first time we are releasing this in vinyl. I think that because of its format, this object will become a cult object, as a lot of people in the countryside don’t have the possibility to listen to records. Anyway, I think the project’s reception will be very positive, as everything we have done has been so far. 

Video: 2014, Las Mostazas, homeowners greet guests and St. Francis with this verse.

CM: Why did you choose not to translate the lyrics in the liner notes?

DP: We decided not to translate the lyrics of the verses because the translation of structured stanzas, such as the décima [a ten-line stanza of poetry], which is the meter in which the canto a lo divino is sung, doesn’t usually permit the original meaning of the text to be successfully transmitted into another language. 

CM: Can you tell me more about the lyric content and form? DP: I believe that the canto a lo divino operates as an art of memory that allows articulating different knowledge that has been transmitted orally or verbally. This knowledge, or stories, mix myths coming from biblical texts with old European texts like the story of Genevieve of Brabant or the story of Charlemagne. These stories are interpreted and resignified by the cantores here in Chile.

In all of these stories, the mythical characters from different worlds coexist. They work or operate because the poetry provides a framework which allows the singers and the communities that partake in the celebration to access new realities. In other words, it is about a poetic use of language that allows access to a world of ideas, which are essential to forming a world where humans can live.

CM: Is Canto still a part of life in this region?

DP: Yes, absolutely. The canto is alive in all of Chile’s central valley. There are tons of cantores and cantoras, and families that worship virgins, saints, and crucifixes in their homes, with their families and neighbors. It is a culture that recreates its historical memory in the canto, a culture that has a particular way of celebrating and inhabiting the world. The peasant world resists the changes that modern life imposes on it, but at the same time, adapts and changes. The canto a lo divino is one of Chile’s oldest traditions and cultural practices. It has always evolved and has survived the colonial era, the haciendas, the migrations from country to town at the beginning of the 1900s, the arrival of the radio, school, the military regime of Pinochet, the creation of the Ministry of Culture, the cultural emergence of the peasant world… it will undoubtedly outlast us anthropologists and record labels too…