Co-founder of German electronic music pioneers Kraftwerk dies aged 73
Florian Schneider-esleben – a co-founder of German electronic music pioneers Kraftwerk – has died at the age of 73.
Citing fellow group founder Ralf Huetter, his record label Sony said Schneider-esleben had been suffering from cancer.
Schneider-esleben and Huetter started working together in 1968.
In 1970, they founded the Kling-klang-studio in Düsseldorf and launched Kraftwerk.
Schneider-esleben was involved in Kraftwerk albums spanning three decades, including Autobahn, Radio-activity, Trans-europe Express, The Man-machine and Tour de France.
Kraftwerk won a Grammy award for lifetime achievement in 2014.
A multi-discipline artist, Schneider-esleben played the synthesizer, vocoder, flute and saxophone.
Kraftwerk played a major role in the emergence of synthpop in the 1980s and were widely sampled by house and disco producers in Chicago and Detroit.
Also among Schneider’s admirers was David Bowie, whose Berlin Trilogy of Low, Heroes and Lodger in the 1970s was inspired by Kraftwerk. Bowie even named an instrumental track on the album Heroes, V-2 Schneider, after the musician.
Following Kraftwerk’s final studio album, 2003’s Tour De France Soundtracks, and a return to touring, Schneider left the group in 2008.
The group were due to embark on a summer tour celebrating their 50th anniversary, but this was put on hold due to the coronavirus pandemic.
In their current make-up as a four-piece, Kraftwerk features co-founder Hutter alongside Fritz Hilpert, Henning Schmitz and Falk Grieffenhagen.
Spandau Ballet singer Gary Kemp was among those paying tribute.
He wrote: “Such an important influence upon so much of the music we know, from Bowie, to electronica, much of the 80s and beyond into modern techno and rap, Florian Schneider was forging a new Metropolis of music for us all to live in.”