Cylinder recordings … are a snapshot of musical and popular culture in the decades around the turn of the 20th century. They have long held the fascination of collectors and have presented challenges for playback and preservation by archives and collectors alike.

… a digital collection of over 5,000 cylinder recordings held by the Department of Special Collections. In an effort to bring these recordings to a wider audience, they can be freely downloaded or streamed online.

… find out more about the cylinder format, listen to thousands of musical and spoken selections from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and discover a little-known era of recorded sound.

The site carries a CC-licence and a short rundown on state vs common-law copyrights. Fresh site. Over 5000 tracks converted from cylinder to digital so far (not all to MP3 yet). Via Creative Commons weblog.

Cactus Killer Radio is playing indie music from dreampop to rock to gothic to new wave to folk to electronic from its own catalogue. I am not a huge fan of dreampop, but some tunes in these casts are breaking through my barrier of dreampop-resistance. The Phillip Eno project has also made some MP3s available. Why not start with

• Too Late (heavy mix) (mp3) from Almost a Love Story.

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation has started a music podcast featuring unsigned/independent Canadian artists only (iloveradio). I have listened to the first one. I will give it one more try before giving up (it’s professionally produced and all, but the DJ’s choice of podsafe music in the first show was not my cup of tea).

CC Mixter

I have been through the winners of the Creative Common’s Fine Art of Sampling Contest, as well as the Mixter’s editorial picks.

The CC Mixter site is a little bit lacking in navigation (missing menu entry for the editorial picks), but thankfully there is a streaming prelisten for all songs. A big part of the music is ambient/electronica and there are plenty of remixes (no surprise).

• Recommended track: A Night in the Desert (ambient, 9m:14s, slight distortion) by shockshadow.

Comfort Stand Recordings is a community-driven label where all releases are free with artwork and liner notes. We strive to bring you recordings that we find interesting, compelling and downright enjoyable.