An interesting piece on the history of the vocoder from Nate Lavey for The New Yorker. From its roots as military communications technology - first developed by Bell Laboratories as Project X to reduce and encrypt t communications sent across the wires as scrambled data. With Bell creating their own recordings of an old Irish folk song it became clear that the technology also had musical applications.
Featuring Laurie Anderson, Cozmo D, Dave Tompkins and Frank Gentages.
More Information
Older Music Machines & the People Who Still Use Them
Revisions that turned synths into brand new machines