Leaving alone Sun Ra's cosmic jazz, the sounds from California (in certain way they came from acid and cyberdelia) and Pink Floyd's "Arnold Layne" and "Interstellar Overdrive" first light-shows, we have to agree that techno started at the release of the Moog synthesizer, a revolutionary instrument which gathered any imaginable sound and changed radically musical performing. Excentric Walter Carlos (later converted to Wendy Carlos by surgery miracles) was one of its first users, at early times it was introduced to the mass market and was often used in symphonic rock (Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Mike Oldfield or Yes) and at some of that time hits as "Popcorn" or Chicory Tip's "Son of My Father".
Despite these facts, it was in Germany where the new electronic advances had a best reaction in the market, giving the roots to the techno we know today. At first, from the conurbations like Berlin, Colonia or Düsseldorf, emerged the cosmic posts. Bands as Tangerine Dream, Ash Ra, Popol Vuh, Can (of which one of the members Holger Czukay had been Stockhausen pupil), Faust, Neu or, most of all, Kraftwerk; in spite of being quite different they had some common features because it was already planning and space music (Tangerine Dream), sound chaos (Can) or electronic rhythms (Kraftwerk), and everyone had a passionate feeling about technology and new sounds.
Second, in München, Giorgio Moroder creates disco music and, for the first time, manages to substitute successfully the warm sensibility of soul with electronic rhythms, a formula which has been used since then and has produced the greatest works. The repeated hi-energy played at gay discos and house with all of its types are derivative of this movement.
Besides the German factory, we don't have to forget about some other important facts of the 70's. Brian Eno creates his own label, Obscure Records which acted as a pillar for electronic development (David Toop, Gavin Bryars and Eno himself). Later, people like Whitehouse, Monte Cazzara and the dangerous Throbbing Gristle, commit audio assaults in the name of industrial music, opening the path for "cassette guerrilla" groups. In Sheffield the techno-pop revolution is about to happen promoted by Human League and Cabaret Voltaire, mainly. And from San Francisco, Ralph Records becomes the home for techno-maniacs like The Residents, Tuxedomoon or Snakefinger.