A great book on the history of vocoders, bij Dave Tompkins. Unfortunately this is not for sale anymore but it can be found in the 2nd hand market such as through bol.com or amazon.com.
The history of the vocoder: How the Pentagon’s speech scrambling weapon transformed into the robot voice of pop music
How to Wreck a Nice Beach includes interviews with:Afrika Bambaataa, Ray Bradbury, Florian Schneider of Kraftwerk, Peter Frampton, Laurie Anderson, T-Pain, Teddy Riley, DJ Quik, ELO, Rammellzee, Arthur Baker, Michael Jonzun, Midnight Star, Lester Troutman of Zapp, Holger Czukay of Can, Donnie Wahlberg, Egyptian Lover, Fab Five Freddy, Forrest J. Ackerman, Man Parrish, Cybotron and Wendy Carlos, composer of A Clockwork Orange and The Shining.
“It’s unquestionably brilliant, not only one of the best music books of the year, but also one of the best music books ever written.” Los Angeles Times
“How to Wreck a Nice Beach is much more than a labor of love: It’s an intergalactic vision quest fueled by several thousand gallons of high-octane spiritual-intellectual lust. … [Tompkin’s] biggest and most perilous adventure in How to Wreck a Nice Beach is the plunge deep into the throbbing radioactive heart of his own prose—a hallucinatory stew of Rimbaud, Tom Wolfe, Lester Bangs, and Bootsy Collins.”— New York Magazine
By Dave Tompkins, published by Stop Smiling Books, Chicago, Melville House Publishing, Brooklyn.
Paperback Edition, 9781612190921