Mystery recordings will now be heard for the first time in about 100 years
The New York Public Library recently received a machine that will read cracked and scratched wax cylinders — which include some of the earliest recorded audio.
Before audio playlists, before cassette tapes and even before records, there were wax cylinders â the earliest, mass-produced way people could both listen to commercial music and record themselves.
In the 1890s, they were a revolution. People slid blank cylinders onto their Edison phonographs (or shaved down the wax on commercial cylinders) and recorded their families, their environments,
