Florian Schneider-Esleben - co-founder of German electronic-music pioneers Kraftwerk, one of the most influential music groups of the past 50 years - has died, a representative for the group says.
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"Florian Schneider has passed away from a short cancer disease just a few days after his 73rd birthday," a statement from the group said.
"In the year 1968 Ralf Hutter and Florian Schneider started their artistic and musical collaboration. In 1970 they founded their electronic Kling Klang studio in Dusseldorf (Germany) and started the multi-media project Kraftwerk. All the Kraftwerk catalogue albums were conceived and produced there. In 2014 Hutter and Schneider were honoured with the Grammy Lifetime Achievement award."
While Kraftwerk were recognised during their 1970s creative peak as an influential and pioneering outfit - particularly by David Bowie, who played the group's Radioactivity album before his 1976 concerts and even wrote a tribute to the musician called V2 Schneider - their influence grew more and more apparent as synthesisers and other electronic instruments became prominent in popular music, particularly with the MTV-powered synth-pop wave of the early 1980s, driven by groups such as Depeche Mode and the Human League.
The group influenced various forms of music including dance and hip-hop.
Australian Associated Press
