History of House is a very interesting book about the history of House music and the technology behind it.
The book is compiled and edited by Chris Kempster in 1996, the articles come from music-technology-magazines like 'the Mix', 'Music Technology' and 'Electronics and Music Maker' (E&MM)
The 206-paged book is divided into three parts; The Artists USA, The Artists UK & Europe and a third part that is called 'The Technology'
The first part contains interviews with some of the most influential house-deejays/producers like Marshall Jefferson, Lil'Louis, Larry Heard, Juan Atkins, Derrick May, Kevin Saunderson, Richie Hawtin and Carl Craig.
The interviews that the author/ compiler picked are very well written, and besides giving an insight into the history of house music, they also contain a lot of tech and synthesizer references. Most producers explain what instruments they used and why.
The second part of the book features UK and European artists Kraftwerk, M/A/R/R/S, S-Express, Baby Ford, 808 State, A Guy called Gerald, The Orb and Goldie.
The third and last part is all about the classic House-instruments and probably the most interesting for the readers of this blog.
Here you can find some interesting articles about the classic house drum machines like the TR-808 and TR-909, the Roland TB-303 acid bassline, SH-101 and Juno 106 synthesizers, the Alesis MMT-8 and Korg SQD1 sequencers and from more modern machines like the Ensoniq Mirage, Yamaha DX100 to the Akai S-1000 and Kurzweil K2000 samplers.
Overall this is a very entertaining book for anyone who is interested in house music, the (mid-)80's synthesizer history and/or its instruments. 8/10
Sanctuary Publishing, Limited, 1996
ISBN: 1-86074-134-7
