Florian Schneider 1947-2020

Today one of the biggest geniuses in rock music died, Florian Schneider, co-founder of electronic music-pioneers Kraftwerk, one of the most influential groups of the past 50 years. He was 73.

In 1968 Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider started their artistic and musical collaboration. In 1970 they founded their electronic Kling Klang studio in Düsseldorf and started the multi-media project Kraftwerk. While Kraftwerk were recognized during their 1970s-80s creative peak as an influential and pioneering outfit — particularly by David Bowie, their influence grew more and more apparent as synthesizers and other electronic instruments became prominent in popular music, particularly with the MTV-powered early-’80s synth-pop wave of groups such as Depeche Mode and the Human League. Yet Kraftwerk’s influence on all forms of electronic-based music, especially dance, pop even hip-hop, is vast and indisputable.

I’ve always been fascinated by the early Kraftwerk years and how their avantgarde music and experimental approach totally changed the world of rockmusic. As son of a rich architect Schneider had the money to build his own electronic instruments in the early seventies, resulting in the use of weird electronic machines that were creating even weirder sounds that were totally new and never heard before. In the Kraftwerk universe every atom became robotic during the seventies, including the members of Kraftwerk themselves.

You can clearly recognize the influences of Kraftwerk in my film INFORG; The way the main character of INFORG moves is very much inspired by the robotic non-emotional movements of the Kraftwerk members. Even the title INFORG is inspired by Kraftwerk: A futuristic machine-like word.