LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Kraftwerk: Florian Schneider
built 643 days ago
For the greater part of its history, and certainly during the most important part of that history, Kraftwerk consisted of four people: Ralf Hütter, Florian Schneider, Karl Bartos and Wolfgang Flür. As the main architect of Kraftwerk's image, this was the impression that Ralf Hütter was happy to project, but the reality was not quite as it seemed. Hütter and Schneider were the core members with proprietorial control, while Flür and Bartos were employees. With the development of sequencers, of which Kraftwerk were leading exponents, the drumming talents of Flür and Bartos became more and more redundant, and they both eventually parted company from the group. But if Hütter and Schneider had the control and most of the money, Wolfgang and Karl seem to have got the girls. (Emil Schult was a sort of fifth, hidden, member of Kraftwerk, but that is another story).
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Having waited over 15 years for a new studio album, Kraftwerk returned with a repetitive, regurgitated sound that plodded along limply to their old Tour De France theme from 1983. However, whilst Minimum - Maximum cannot claim to be anything other than a retro-album, it’s clear that original members Ralf Hutter & Florian Schneider have worked hard to update the Kraftwerk sound, remixing, or in some cases re-remixing elements of classic tracks that last appeared on The Mix in 1991, and more than a few others too. Therefore, not only is practically every Kraftwerk classic spread across this double-disc, including The Man-Machine, Neon Lights, Autobahn, The Model, Radioactivity, Numbers, Home Computer, Pocket Calculator, and The Robots - but they have all been playfully updated with new vigour.
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During the mid-'70s, Germany's Kraftwerk established the sonic blueprint followed by an extraordinary number of artists in the decades to come. From the British new romantic movement to hip-hop to techno, the group's self-described "robot pop" -- hypnotically minimal, obliquely rhythmic music performed solely via electronic means -- resonates in virtually every new development to impact the contemporary pop scene of the late- 20th century, and as pioneers of the electronic music form, their enduring influence cannot be overstated. Kraftwerk emerged from the same German experimental music community of the late '60s which ... spawned Can and Tangerine Dream; primary members Florian Schneider and Ralf Hütter first met as classical music students at the Dusseldorf Conservatory, originally teaming in the group Organisation and issuing a 1970 album, Tone Float. Schneider and Hütter soon disbanded Organisation, re-christening themselves Kraftwerk (German for "power station"), beginning work on their own studio (later dubbed Kling Klang), and immersing their music in the fledgling world of minimalist electronics; their 1971 debut, titled simply Kraftwerk 1, offered a hint of their unique aesthetic in its earliest form, already implementing innovations including Schneider's attempts at designing homemade rhythm machines.
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Kraftwerk, formed in 1970 by Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider, grew out of the same German experimental movement that spawned groups like Can and Tangerine Dream. It is not an overstatement to say that Hütter and Schneider, pioneers of an entirely electronic approach to music-making, made Kraftwerk one of the most influential bands in rock history. Their music is directly or indirectly responsible for techno, electronica, industrial and, because the melody of "Trans Europe Express" formed the backbone of Afrika Bambaataa's 1982 mega-hit "Planet Rock," hip-hop as well. The dance floors of the world would be a very different place indeed, if not for Kraftwerk.
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Originally called "Organisation", but later switching to "Kraftwerk", the principal members are Florian Schneider and Ralf Hütter. Wolfgang Flür and Karl Bartos have ... collaborated in Kraftwerk, as have Emil Schult, and Kling Klang personnel such as Fritz Hilpert and Henning Schmitz.
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Kraftwerk's robotic, repetitive, all-electronic music influenced virtually every synthesizer band that followed in its wake. In the mid-'70s the German group literally invented the man-machine sound and image. In 1970 Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider-Esleben, who had met studying classical music at the Dusseldorf Conservatory, founded Kling-Klang Studio.
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Florian Schneider