Florian Schneider will remain a mysterious man until the end. Died a week ago and buried in the strictest of privacy, he was announced dead this Wednesday, May 5 only. In 1977, David Bowie dedicated a superb instrumental track, V-2 Schneider to him on his 1977 album, Heroes . The English musician was not the only one to claim the influence of Kraftwerk, who was a pioneer formation of European electronic music, placed somewhat hastily in the category "krautrock".
Son of Paul Schneider-Esbelen, architect to whom we design the Cologne airport, Florian Schneider was born in 1947. A student in Düsseldorf, this multi-instrumentalist (flute, violin and guitar) was illustrated in several city formations. After his first group, Pissoff, he joined The Organization, where he met Ralf Hütter. Together, the two men were soon to form Kraftwerk, and begin to experiment with an electronic instrumentarium. After three duo albums, Kraftwerk would become a quartet for Autobahn , in 1974, one of the most influential records of the decade. Composed in the synthesizer, and part of a reflection on the world of the time, the disc would become a great popular success in the Anglo-Saxon world. Combined with the triumph of Jean-Michel Jarre's first album two years later, it helped to show that the roots of electronic music were indeed in Europe.
In a few years, and a series of very successful albums, Krafterk was going to impose an increasingly sophisticated robotic sound, with the song of Hütter, who spoke in German and English. Radio-Activity (1975), Trans-Europe Express (1977) and The Man-Machine (1978) have become classics, essential for any disco. All the synthetic pop of the 1980s owed something to these discreet heroes, who worked hard in their Düsseldorf studio, Kling Klang, fleeing the press and the codes of show business.
Sampled by Afrika Bambaata, the theme of their song Trans-Europe Express gave birth to the first hit in the history of hip hop, Planet Rock . As for their Computer World , it left an indelible mark on the developments of house and techno on the Detroit and Chicago scenes. Paradoxically, while their imprint is in all the music of the time, they will be discreet in the 1980s, with only two albums, Computer World (1981) and Electric Café (1986). After resuming touring in 1990, the group released their latest studio album, Tour de France Soundtrack , inspired by Ralf Hütter's love of cycling, in 2003. Three years later, Schneider left the group for reasons that have never been mentioned. Kraftwerk continued without him, leaving Hütter sole master on board, now surrounded by three collaborators.
Jean-Michel Jarre, very moved by this disappearance tweeted: "My dear Florian, your Autobahn will never stop ... The Tour de France will never be the same again ..." The Italian producer and DJ Giorgio Moroder has for his part published on social networks a photo of him alongside the German, with this caption for any comment: "One of my heroes has left us ..."