Press

Here’s How These Filmmakers Self-Distributed Their Documentary…
Indiewire / June 12, 2015
More importantly, we felt that with such a modestly budgeted film, one that was a real labor of love and had been funded through the generosity of spirit of our Kickstarter backers, we owed it to our little movie and its supporters to pursue a course that would remain true to the spirit of authenticity of the film and of “The 78 Project” as a whole. And the best way to do that might very well be through some form of self-distribution. [Read more]

Alex Steyermark and Lavinia Jones Wright travel the country to replicate Alan Lomax’s field recordings
Charleston City Paper / January 28, 2015
The documentary doesn’t only showcase musicians. It’s also a testament to the archivists who have worked to protect Lomax’s recordings. The filmmakers travel to the Smithsonian Museum’s archives and the Library of Congress to see where Lomax’s original recordings are stored — and look at the behind-the-scenes work that goes into preserving them for future generations. The discs from the likes of Muddy Waters and Woodie Guthrie sit on shelves in album sleeves, some beyond repair, others with personal notes from the people who created the recordings. [Read more]

A one-of-a-kind documentary that is part road movie, part concert film, and part journey through the past.
The Commercial Appeal Memphis / January 26, 2015
The movie follows filmmakers Alex Steyermark and Lavinia Jones Wright as they travel around the country, armed with a vintage microphone, an authentic 1930s Presto direct-to-acetate disc recorder, and blank 78-rpm lacquer discs to capture performances of public-domain songs in a single take, replicating the “field recording” style of such ethnomusicologists as Alan Lomax. Along the way, the filmmakers also visit various music experts, who offer a history of the recording industry and tantalizing glimpses into the vaults that contain America’s rarest records. [Read more]

’78 Project’ records new artists in a very old way
The Philadelphia Inquirer / January 11, 2015
Inspired by Lomax’s work, from August 2012 to September 2013 director/producer Alex Steyermark and writer/producer Lavinia Jones Wright embarked on a cross-country journey, to document present-day musicians performing folk songs. Both grew up in the Philadelphia area. They recorded the artists with a refurbished 1930s Presto direct-to-acetate disc recorder. The result is their documentary film, The 78 Project. It will be screened at the International House on Thursday night. [Read more]

Joe Jack Talcum (Dead Milkmen) to cut 78 live
PunkNews.org / January 12, 2015
The 78 Project, a film about recording artists live on a 1930s Presto direct-to-acetate recorder, is on a film tour. The film will play in Philadelphia on January 15, 2015 at the International House. Directly after the showing, Joe Jack Talcum of The Dead Milkmen will play a song which will be recorded directly to an acetate record. You can find more information here. [Read more]

The Croydon Arts Show – Interview with The 78 Project Movie creators
Croyden Radio / January 11, 2015
Interview with Director/Producer Alex Steyermark and Writer/Producer Lavinia Wright from The 78 Project Movie, which is showing at The David Lean Cinema on the 15th January. [Listen]

‘The 78 Project’ at the ACME Screening Room
Pure Music (CentralJersey.com) / November 3, 2015
Watching the film is not only a lesson in how music was recorded long ago, and how that process contrasts with the way music is recorded today, it’s also illustrates how differently we watch things today compared to years ago. The recording sessions in the movie are about more than just the recording. We see the filmmakers and musicians talking before the music, making small talk, about music and the Presto. And the camera often lingers after a song has been recorded, letting us watch the musicians and filmmakers banter about what just happened. [Read more]

‘The 78 Project’ captures musical moments on antique format
Commercial Appeal / October 2014
For Alex Steyermark and Lavinia Jones Wright, “The 78 Project” began as a conceptual paean to an old recording technology, but grew into something far more significant. What began as a series of webisodes and recordings has evolved into a feature-length documentary. Playing Thursday at the Indie Memphis film festival… [Read more]

Listen: The 78 Project creators on W!ZARD RADIO interviewed during the BFI London Film Festival by DJ James Gilmore
W!ZARDD RADIO / October 24, 2014
DJ James Gilmore presents an industry special of his world famous Friday show. This week he provides an insight into the music and film industries with the help of the team behind the critically acclaimed ‘The 78 Project Movie’ [Listen]

Film Review: The 78 Project Movie [BFI London Film Festival 2014]
FADED GLAMOUR / October 18, 2014
Initially born as a session-based web series, ‘The 78 Project Movie’ follows Alex Steyermark and Lavinia Jones Wright as they travel across the US with their vintage Presto recorder, allowing the duo to capture unique sessions from a variety of musicians. At times, the results are magical, and even liberating despite the pressures of recording just a single take. Regardless, witnessing the analogue approach is wonderfully refreshing to both artist and viewer alike. [Read more]

‘The 78 Project’: See music made the old-fashioned way
USA Today Pop Candy / August 18, 2014
In 2012 the project’s creators launched a Kickstarter campaign to turn the recordings into a feature-length documentary. Fast-forward two years, and the film is screening nationwide. [Read more]

SXSW class of 2014: features
With a degree awarded by SXSW’s film viceroy Janet Pierson, these gifted grads are voted most likely to spread their cinematic wings
Dazed / July 15, 2014
78 PROJECT (2014) ALEX STEYERMARK: We receive a lot of music films at SXSW, and many of them are similar, either following a tour, or recording in a studio. This was an unusual take, combining a strong sense of place with an element of risk and posterity. It’s a bit of an exercise in musical archaeology, yet very much in the present tense. Filmmakers often tell us they’re sure they’ve “made the perfect film for SXSW.” In this case it was true. [Read more]

The Spirit Music of Gerard Dupuy
The Oxford American / May 8, 2014
Last summer, The 78 Project visited southern Louisiana to film and record Cajun music at the source, as Lomax did in the 1930s. This multimedia piece is a firsthand account of our time with Louisiana musician Gerard Dupuy. [Read more]

Stimmen wie aus der Vergangenheit
derStandard.at / May 1, 2014
Dass sich mit einem alten Schallplatten-Recorder auch heute noch betörende Musikaufnahmen machen lassen, beweist das “The 78 Project” mit seiner Interaktion zwischen Analog und Digital [Read more]

Audiovisual: 14 Must-see New Movies About Music Coming In 2014
Okayplayer / April 8, 2014
After releasing multiple webisodes and a limited-edition vinyl of the beautiful, dusty recordings, The 78 Project film is finally a reality. [Read more]

’78 Project,’ Cash and Carter Docs on the Road to Nashville Film Festival
Billboard / April 3, 2014
“The 78 Project Movie” and “The Winding Stream,” both of which had their world premieres at SXSW and include outstanding performances of Hank Williams’ “I Saw the Light,” will play in competition at the Nashville festival between April 17 and 26… [Read more]

SXSW Film Review: ‘The 78 Project Movie’
With a hiss, crackle, and pop, musicians get to turn back time
The Austin Chronicle / March 13, 2014
The ineffable romance of old recordings makes for magic in this self-produced account of Alex Steyermark and Lavinia Jones Wright giving musicians the chance to record on an acetate disc. [Read more]

Back to the Future – by William Gibson
Oxford American / March 10, 2014
I didn’t imagine anything like The 78 Project, in which we discover that not only are dead media platforms not dead at all, but that they can be gateways into their own peculiarly new universes of creativity. [Read more]

25 Picks for the 2014 SXSW Film and Interactive Festivals
Filmmaker Magazine / March 7, 2014
The canon of cross-platform classics is a small one. Bring up the dreaded T-word, and the same titles are referenced again and again. One of those titles is The 78 Project, which has been a web series, set of recordings, live concerts and now, in true cross-platform fashion, a feature film. Inspired by the ethnomusicology of Alan Lomax, Alex Steyermark crossed the country and paired musicians with the compositions and technology of the past. [Read more]

South By Southwest 2014 Interview – THE 78 PROJECT MOVIE: Alex Steyermark & Lavinia Jones Wright
eFilmCritic / March 7, 2014
“The 78 Project Movie is about two people driving across the country to record contemporary musicians on a 1930’s Presto direct-to-disc recorder. The musicians get one microphone and one blank disk to cut a 78rpm record of an old song in one 3-minute take anywhere they choose. The adventure of capturing these intimate musical performances on film reveals the shared cultural connections of people from seemingly disparate backgrounds.” Director Alex Steyermark on THE 78 PROJECT MOVIE which screens at the 2014 South By Southwest Film Festival. Producer and Presto Recordist Lavinia Jones Wright also joins us to talk about the movie. [Read more]

The 78 Project seeks to recapture sounds of a bygone era
The Charleston Gazette / February 26, 2014
So far, Wright and Steyermark have recorded with the likes of Rosanne Cash, Loudon Wainwright III, Richard Thompson and Mary Chapin Carpenter. They have set up their Presto recorder for bands from Africa and recorded virtually unknown musicians in alleys, public parks and kitchens. [Read more]

The Vinyl Factory  / February 18, 2014
The Archivist: “The past isn’t dead, it isn’t even past” – Recording the present direct-to-disc with The 78 Project
In this three-way interview, we’ve collated our email correspondence with founders Lavinia and Alex alongside interviews with Joe Henry and Valerie June to explore the intention and experience of The 78 Project in greater depth and challenge the notion of nostalgia and tradition in an industry more or less obsessed with its own past. [Read more]

NPR Morning Edition / February 17, 2014
That Old-Time Sound, Captured Live In The Moment
Wanting to tap into the America that Lomax was recording, Wright and Steyermark went out and found some antique Prestos of their own. For the past few years, Jones and Steyermark have been hauling these machines around the country to capture raw performances. They go to places that are not ideal for recording — but that’s part of the point. [Listen]

New York Times ArtsBeat / Feburary 5, 2014
New Recordings Made the Old-Fashioned Way
The result — “The 78 Project” — is becoming a small industry. Each performance was videotaped for an episode on the project’s website. This week, Ms. Jones Wright and Mr. Steyermark released an LP (yes — a vinyl LP that plays at 33 1/3 r.p.m.; it comes with a code for a digital download), “The 78 Project: Volume 1,” with 13 performances, recorded in New York in 2011 and 2012. Mr. Steyermark and Ms. Jones Wright also traveled the country for a year, recording other musicians, and expanding on the web series for a feature-length documentary, which will have its premiere at the South by Southwest festival in March. [Read more]

Afropop Worldwide / February 4, 2014
Sidi Touré & Cedric Watson’s “Pa’ Janvier” Blues
We’ve been feeling some serious Pa’ Janvier (French for “Father January” or “Spirit of Winter”) blues lately. So the time is right for this latest 78 Project episode with International Blues Express, a collaboration of Malian musicians Sidi Touré and Abdoulaye Kone dit Kandjafa with the Cajun players Cedric Watson and Desiree Champagne. [Read more]

PopDose / February 3, 2014
Album Review: Various Artists, “The 78 Project”
What I take from these recordings is a sweet reminder that sound used to be ephemeral — that music was once a miracle a person needed to be present for, instead of a commodity to be carried around and consumed at leisure. No two performances were alike, and they were all bound up in their surroundings, products of their environment. And so it is with The 78 Project: whatever these tracks lose in terms of fidelity, they more than make up in immediacy. [Read more]

Guitar Aficianado / January 31, 2014
Richard Thompson Among Artists on 78 Project’s Direct-to-Disc Debut
The voices are of familiar, contemporary musicians…But they are stark and spectral, as if snatched from the ether several decades after they were first uttered. There is an occasional click, the hash of signal distortion, and the steady low murmur of a turntable motor. Over it all looms a sense of atmosphere — of air that is stirring and alive with activity, urgency, and immediacy. [Read more]

Digital Music News / January 9, 2014
The 78 Project Records Live Performances Direct-to-Disc…
In today’s pro-vinyl climate, there are a growing number of niche projects putting the format to good use. The 78 Project uses a 1930s Presto direct-to-acetate disk recorder to record live performances in one take. The project is inspired by Alan Lomax, an American folk music field collector. [Read more]

The Vinyl Factory Unlimited / January 8, 2014
The 78 Project to release first vinyl volume of direct-to-disc recordings
Volume One will represent the first released material from what has until now been a fascinating web series (with further aspirations for a feature length documentary) featuring an array of contemporary musicians from the folk, blues and acoustic traditions, many of whom, like 2013 breakthrough act Valerie June, have gone on to release hugely successful albums in their own right. [Read more]

The New York Times Magazine – The 6th Floor Blog / December 12, 2013
An Antique Device Gives Musicians a Spin Through Yesteryear
The album, an offshoot of a web series produced by Alex Steyermark and Lavinia Jones Wright, is already on sale ahead of its Jan. 28 digital and vinyl release. Very much in the chronicling tradition of Harry Smith and Alan Lomax, the recordings were made in and around New York between August 2011 and May 2012 and includes standout performances… [Read more]

WNYC Soundcheck / December 24, 2012
Soundcheck’s Best Live Performances of 2012: Justin Townes Earle recorded by The 78 Project
Back in May, Soundcheck teamed up with The 78 Project, a group that travels around the country recording musicians using an old 78 rpm recorder from the 1930’s, and live on the air they and we made this recording of Justin Townes Earle playing his song “Memphis in the Rain” with all the pops and cracks and wobbles left in… [Listen]

WJBC Illinois / October 7, 2012
The Steve Fast Show: Interview with The 78 Project

The Key: XPN / October 3, 2012
Walking in the footsteps of Alan Lomax with The 78 Project
Home from the first road trip, planning their next, Wright and Stevermark are using their Kickstarter campaign as a means to expand their project from focused, episodic performances to a broader look at field recording, folk music and American history. [Read more]

Village Voice / September 25, 2012
The New Art of Old-Timey Field Recording
At the Independent Filmmaker Project’s recent film-week event, most people screened, well, films. Alex Steyermark and Lavinia Jones Wright chose not to. Instead, they cut a live record on a 1930’s Presto direct-to-disc recorder, giving the audience at the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center a chance to experience field recording firsthand. [Read more]

The Awl / September 25, 2012
One Take To Get The Music Right: A Chat About The 78 Project
For the past year, Alex Steyermark and Lavinia Jones Wright have led The 78 Project, a New York-based operation that aims to create an archive of the whole of contemporary American folk music using 1930s-era recording equipment. [Read more]

USA Today PopCandy / September 12, 2012
The 78 Project grabs American music by the roots
Sometimes the simplest way is the best way. The folks behind The 78 Project seem to agree with that saying; this year creators Alex Steyermark and Lavinia Jones Wright have been traveling the country, recording early American music with technology of the past. [Read more]

The 78 Project will be showcased at IFP’s prestigious Independent Film Week in September as part of its esteemed Project Forum in the Spotlight on Documentaries!
IFP Announces The 34th Edition of Independent Film Week September 16-20 plus 2012 Industry Activities and Project Forum Slate [Read more]

America Changed Through Music (University of East Anglia’s School of American Studies at UEA London) / July 30, 2012
Guest Post: The 78 Project
A new guest post, this time courtesy of The 78 Project, on their extraordinary endeavours and their relationship to Harry Smith’s Anthology of American Folk Music! [Read more]

WXPN.com  / July 20, 2012
Adam Arcuragi records “How Can I Keep from Singing” a capella, straight to acetate
This video from The 78 Project – which revives the straight-to-acetate recording method of pioneering folklorist Alan Lomax with today’s musicians – sees Arcuragi singing “How Can I Keep from Singing” in a converted church in Harlem. [Read more]

INSTRUMENTAL webzine / June, 2012
Story+ The 78 Project
The 78 Project is offering something rare and wonderful. It’s the chance to bring a song alive as if heard for the first time; essential, electric and in the moment. It’s the most fundamental tenet of performance – one singer, one song and one take. [Read more]

Travel + Leisure Carry On / May 24, 2012
The 78 Project: Time Travel at 78 RPM
If the Alan Lomax collection had a time travel section, that’s where you’d find The 78 Project. Rather than just observing and preserving present-day culture, the project combines technology and traditions from the past with modern musicians—an active exploration of antiquity that’s more mad scientist than history professor. [Read more]

Soundcheck WNYC / May 17, 2012
The 78 Project: A New Take on that Old Timey Sound
The 78 Project is on a mission to record today’s musicians with yesterday’s technology – a 1930s PRESTO direct-to-disc recorder. We’ll hear about the project and give it a go, as the project records our musical guest, Justin Townes Earle, live on the air. [Listen]

BBC News / May 11, 2012
78 Project replicates original vinyl recording style
New York is buzzing with retro-chic products these days, but few can match the authenticity of a project that aims to bring alive the sound, touch, and even smells of recorded music’s first golden period. [Listen]

Time Out New York / May 9, 2012
Critic’s Pick: The 78 Project: Leah Siegel + Laura Burhenn + Dawn Landes and more
Fans of crackly old vinyl, come hither: The 78 Project has been field-recording musicians around NYC singing public-domain songs into a 1930s direct-to-disc acetate recorder, just like the old days. Tonight is a live outing for the project, where Leah Siegel of Firehorse, the Mynabirds’ Laura Burhenn and Hem singer Dawn Landes, among others, will all make live recordings at the Winery. There’s also a silent auction, where acetates by Rosanne Cash and Richard Thompson (among others) will go under the hammer. Hold that sneeze, folks… [Read more]

PledgeMusic / April 24, 2012
Q&A with Vandaveer
The 78 Project is truly a special thing…In preparing for the 78 Project we had a hard time whittling down our choice to a single song. Rosie and I had so many ideas for songs that would work well for our session, and almost all of them could be loosely described as murder ballads. [Read more]

New England Society for the Preservation of Recorded Sound / April 24, 2012
The 78 Project
A group of folks in New York are taking famed field recordist Alan Lomax’s example to heart. They’re not just collecting and listening to old records, they’re making them [Read more]

The New Yorker / April 9, 2012
Take One “Presto!” Talk of the Town p. 25
Each song receives a single take. “That was the field-recording tradition,” Steyermark said. “One Shot. We don’t want people to fix up their performances.” Wright asked June to sit in front of the microphone so that she could set the levels on the Presto. Out on the street, a fire truck passed. “We always seem to get a siren,” Wright said. [Read more]

songsfortheday / March 26, 2012
Monday Links
The 78 Project films bands ‘with just one microphone, one authentic 1930′s PRESTO direct-to-disc recorder, and one blank lacquer disk.’ The below video of Vandaveer playing ‘Banks of the Ohio’ is proof of just how incredible this idea is. [Read more]

Louisvillemusic.org / March 22, 2012
Vandaveer – Episode #4 Of The 78 Project
Here’s a piece of video that’s well worth watching – Episode #4 of the 78 Project, in which Vandaveer cuts “Banks Of the Ohio” live to acetate, just like it was done in the early part of the 20th Century. Note the recording engineer brushing the acetate as it cuts. [Read more]

Playback.ning.com / February 12, 2012
The 78 Project
The 78 Project is recording live performances of US folk singers directly onto lacquer discs with a 70-year old recorder. [Read more]

HearNebraska.org / January 4, 2012
“Roses While I’m Living” by The Mynabirds | The 78 Project
Stop and consider what it takes for these words and the live video below to reach your eyes and ears. Think about the number of technological breakthroughs, the myriad great minds who made the digital age possible. Now rewind.
It all has a beginning, and The Mynabirds are one of a handful of artists so far to lend a reminder of how recorded music of a portable variety took some of its first steps. Through a “documentary and recording journey inspired by Alan Lomax,” The 78 Project uses one microphone, one authentic 1930s PRESTO direct-to-disc recorder and one blank lacquer disk to go back in time, if just for a few minutes. [Read more]

Migrate Music News / January 2012
The Mynabirds in the studio and on tour + Contribute to The 78 Project

We Who Are About To Die / November 8, 2011
The 78 Project, “The Brown Girl,” recorded in Brooklyn.

SpliceToday / October 28, 2011
Dawn Landes Covers “The Brown Girl” For the 78 Project
…putting indie up-and-comers in front of lowest of lo-fi set-ups.

Kudos & Flowers / October 26, 2011
Acetates: The New MP3’s
The anticipation for a new music project used to be fever pitch. You could mark your calendar for the next Clash release and you were there at the record store waiting to buy it.  This has been lost in the current overload of music.  Wouldn’t it be nice to get a regular email alert that an admired musician has just recorded for The 78 Project?  It would be 6 minutes of rediscovering music and the people who make it, a nice surprise indeed. [Read more]

LouisvilleMusic.org / October 10, 2011
A Dawn Landes Teaser For The 78 Project
Everything that has been recorded over the past 90 years or so is grist for the current musical mill, including the methods used in the recording. A new project, called the 78 Project, is going back to the portable straight-to-laquer, one-take record recording device like those used by Alan Lomax, back when he was traveling the South, recording then-unknown musicians like Leadbelly, the Carter Family and more. Herewith then, a teaser, shot in the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens (Children’s Garden), September 2011 and featuring Dawn Landes. [Read more]

 YVYNYL / October 4, 2011
The 78 Project: Dawn Landes (Official Teaser)
I don’t often write about ‘teasers’ but I happen to know a few folks behind this project, and have heard first hand of it’s awesome vision.
When Alan Lomax went around the south in the 1930’s recording every blues musician who’d sit for a session, they ‘discovered’ folks like Lead Belly, Muddy Waters and more. Now, this project takes the device he used – a straight-to-laquer, one-take record recording PRESTO and asks their musical friends to sing into a mic.
Knowing that they have some connections to some wicked (and well known) musicians, I’m sure this clip is merely a small peak into so much more to come. [Read more]