The Volta Labs recordings just SOUND like they'd be creepy (in a good way), with the implication of Frankensteinian bolts of electricity and mad scientists with their hair all frizzed up and murder in their eyes. In truth, they were a series of sound recording experiments, mostly with grown men babbling away like babies. Played back, it wouldn't have sounded much better - but this was, after all, the 1880s, and ANY sound recording was impressive, even a bunch of technicians (who sound here as if they've been into the sauce) trying to sound as bizarre as possible. I've paired these weird curiosities with some visual curiosities: gifs I made ages ago and strung together into a kind-of video. The thousands of gifs I've made over the last ten years or so have a new life now, as YouTube videos, and it's even cooler now that I can add sound to them. But not just ANY sound! The sound of men acting like little boys about 140 years ago. From Wikipedia: "The experimental sound recording studio was housed in a dilapidated old building called the Black Maria. Edison employees W. K. Dickson and Jonathan Campbell coined the name—it reminded them of police Black Marias (police vans, also known as 'paddywagons') of the time because they were also cramped, stuffy and a similar black color. Edison himself called it 'The Doghouse', but that name never took hold."
