Continuum Books has published a collection of essays looking at electronica music’s most influential band, Kraftwerk.

Here’s the publisher’s summary of Kraftwerk: Music Non-Stop:

When they were creating and releasing their most influential albums in the mid to late 1970s, Kraftwerk were far from the musical mainstream – and yet it is impossible now to imagine the history of popular music without them. Today, Kraftwerk are considered to be an essential part of pop’s DNA, alongside artists like the Beatles, the Velvet Underground, and Little Richard.

Kraftwerk’s immediate influence might have been on a generation of synth-based bands (Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, the Human League, Depeche Mode, Yello, et al), but their influence on the emerging dance culture in urban America has proved longer lasting and more decisive.

It’s available at Amazon for $18.96.

Details below.

Table of Contents

List of Contributors
Preface
Introduction: The (Ger)man Machines
David Pattie
I. Music, Technology and Culture
1. Autobahn and Heimatklänge: Soundtracking the FRG
Sean Albiez and Kyrre Tromm Lindvig
2. Kraftwerk and the Image of the Modern
David Cunningham
3. Kraftwerk – The Decline of the Pop Star
Pertti Grönholm
4. Authentic Replicants: Brothers between Decades between Kraftwerk(s)
Simon Piasecki and Robert Wilsmore
5. Kraftwerk: Technology and Composition
Carsten Brocker (Translated by Michael Patterson)
6. Kraftwerk: Playing the Machines
David Pattie

II. Influences and Legacies
7. Europe Non- Stop: West Germany, Britain and the Rise of
Synthpop 1975–81
Sean Albiez
8. Vorsprung durch Technik – Kraft werk and the British Fixation
with Germany
Richard Witts
9. ‘Dragged into the Dance’ – The Role of Kraftwerk in the
Development of Electro- Funk
Joseph Toltz
10. Average White Band: Kraftwerk and the Politics of Race
Mark Duffett
11. Trans-Europa Express: Tracing the Trance Machine
Hillegonda Rietveld
Discography
Index