Florian Schneider, a founding member of the pioneering group Kraftwerk, has died at the age of 73.
According to a statement, Schneider "passed away from a short cancer disease just a few days after his 73rd birthday".
Schneider co-founded Kraftwerk in 1970 alongside Ralf Hütter and went on to help shape the sound of popular music.
Beginning as part of Germany’s influential krautrock scene, Kraftwerk would go on to help popularise electronic music through their work with drum machines and sythesisers.
Schneider was born in Öhningen, a German town near to the Swiss border, in 1947 and first met Hütter while studying at the Academy of Arts in Remscheid.
His main instrument was the flute, although he would manipulate its sound with a variety of innovative techniques, such as tape echoes and wah-wahs. He would later go on to engineer his own electronic flute instrument.
With Kraftwerk, he first rose to prominence with albums in the 70s such as Autobahn, Trans-Europe Express and The Man-Machine, all of which achieved commercial success.
The influences of Kraftwerk's sound, once described as "robotic pop", can be found across the musical spectrum, from post-punk and techno to chart-friendly pop music.
Schneider parted ways with the band in 2008, but the remaining members went on to tour and release music, with their most recent effort a live album called 3-D The Catalogue in 2017.
