Any of the better anthologies of 78s – Revenant’s “American Primitive” volumes, Old Hat Records’ “Down in the Basement,” anything produced, compiled, or contributed to by Christopher King – serve as a stunning refutation of homogenized mass culture. “Authenticity” is the word that usually gets tossed around by everyone from casual fan to connoisseur, but in this case it’s true, and it is rare to find anyone not shaken by hearing recorded music free of technological manipulations and mass-market compromises. These are transmissions from a lost world, and the boundless range of idiosyncratic regional voices, heard through decades of accumulated crackle and hiss, often sounds like messages from American’s collective unconscious. Add to that the pathos of the records having barely survived a largely indifferent populace, poor storage and the savagery of worn Victrola needles…