Daniel Miller on Florian Schneider (1947 – 2020)
“It’s impossible to imagine the current musical landscape without the influence of Kraftwerk and there would be no Mute without Kraftwerk. They didn’t just inspire me, they helped me to understand the process of making electronic music.
I was lucky enough to have met Florian on a number of occasions over the years and the last time we met, in Düsseldorf, he showed me around his studio with a great deal of passion and humour; showing me pre-war electronic devices that he’d bought in bulk but that never worked.
I was also lucky enough to have been able to purchase the original Kraftwerk vocoder from Florian. It was through eBay and we only realised we had been talking to each other after the sale was agreed! He did explain that the vocoder never really worked properly but said that if I wanted to, he would explain it to me over a cup of tea. We never managed to have that explanatory cup of tea, but it became a running joke between us.
Mute sends our condolences to Florian’s family, we are eternally grateful to him for his remarkable musical legacy.”
– Daniel Miller