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The Compositional Possibilities Are Endless. By Else Marie Pade
Éliane Radigue | Interview with Ludger Brümmer ZKM | Karlsruhe
Electromotive - The Story of ARP Instruments
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Somehow criticized, still I think the book from Mark Prendergast is a easy-go read, here a full-text draft of the book:
https://archive.org/stream/TheAmbientCenturyFromMahlerToMobyByMarkPrendergast/The+Ambient+Century+from+Mahler+to+Moby+by+Mark+Prendergast_djvu.txt
Also, this essay from David Dunn, dating back at 1998:
https://www.davidddunn.com/~david/writings/pioneers.pdf
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In these forums there are a few useful threads:
Also try these Youtube videos:
There are seven lectures in total.
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I find this one to be a supremely enjoyable documentary, not only about Kraftwerk but about the rise of electronic music:
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“The new sound of music” (produced at BBC in 1979) shines some light on what was it like back then.
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Wow!
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Everybody, thanks. Much appreciated. Plenty to keep me busy.
This was good.
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Driving here from another thread, some mention was made to the figure of Luigi Russolo, so here are some anchors for listening.
The “Intonarumori” created by Russolo is sort of a primordial analog synth, and the instruments leading the staves of his score “Il risveglio di una città” (1913) can be in effect regarded as just oscillators ante-litteram.
On the UbuWeb site:
one can listen to performances with Intonarumori sound generator replicas, played by a modern Intonarumori Orchestra from Japan.There you can also listen to the original works “Corale” and “Serenata”, remastered by the only 75rpm recording left of his performances.
I like to compare the work quoted above, “Il risveglio di una città”, with a 40 years - and two world wars’ - later work, “Ritratto di città” (1954) by Luciano Berio and Bruno Maderna, a radiophonic poem (here’s a reference link: https://youtu.be/CGCtmv_E5zE) where both electronic sounds, and concrete music techniques, were mixed and exploited in a mature way to build up a concep-art composition.
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a film called Modulations is great if you can find it. there was a clean version on youtube but not anymore.
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A lecturer of mine put me onto this academic article on the history of electronic music. pioneers.pdf (113.5 KB)
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Thanks for mentioning this, I had a look and it is still on Youtube. I’m only 10 minutes in but its pretty decent so far 
Cheers!
EDIT: Just watched it all. Definitely worth a watch, lots of interesting themes and contributors. One thing struck me though: most of the artists/musicians that were interviewed were perfectly fine, had something to say - and stated their case sincerely. It wasn’t until just after the 1 hour 6 minute mark when a couple of guys are just goofing around. Playing up to the camera bit, sure, but just playing around. This cast the previous hour in a different light for me. Lots of chin-scratching and people taking themselves far too seriously. Which sounds harsh but I wonder if it was intentional. Contextually though, being on camera was a different experience for most people back then. Many people were not used to the idea, or as relaxed about it as we are today, which might have something to do with their presentation. Either way, its a good slice of 90s nostalgia. Man I miss the 90s.
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Alex Ball has some good videos, for example on Roland: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JcbpRMZIQ8g
and his history of the Prophet: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ruh0B5QKBMs
Both his and Reverb’s video on the ARP 2600 (and other ARPs) are very good: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l31RXiVSI9s,
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This new series of 3 programmes just started on BBC Radio;
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