This announcement was made on one of the larger Kraftwerk fan sites yesterday:
Florian Schneider leaves Kraftwerk…
Florian Schneider leaves Kraftwerk after a 40 years partnership with Ralf Hütter.
This partnership has generated an incredible music and huge advances in music technology.
Florian is a great musician, always seeking the perfect sound through technology. Refined and perfected sounds and vocoders to impossible levels of perfection.
Our thanks for the state of art that led to Kraftwerk’s music all these years.
And our wishes for success Florian’s new projects as well as to this new Kraftwerk.
There is nothing to indicate the origin of the message and there is no mention of it on Kraftwerk's site or on their MySpace page.
As Schneider hasn't been appearing live with Kraftwerk recently (his replacement being Stefan Pfaffe), this news item, however bad it might be, shouldn't affect the already planned tour dates.
Still, I am glad that I have been able to see Kraftwerk performing, with Mr Schneider, thrice over the last 20 years or so.
Schneider-Bartos-Flür? I'm ready!
ReplyDeleteYeah, that would be something!
ReplyDeleteHmmmmmm... Would be nice for fanboys, sure, but rather unlikely - according to someone with a little 1st hand insight, Florian was the most active in cutting off the connections with the old colleagues...
ReplyDeleteHe might have changed his mind.
ReplyDeleteAnd anyway, we don't know why he left or if he ever plans on coming back.
If Schneider-Bartos-Flur does happen, it would be extremely strange if Ralf decided to quit KW and team up with the three of his colleagues. Then there would be two Kraftwerks, Hutter-Schneider-Bartos-Flur, and Schmitz-Hilpert-Pfaffe-????? Highly unlikely, though.
Now THAT would be something. 80's Kraftwerk would have slowly metamorphosed into a new, but identical band. While the original Kraftwerk would play on as if nothing happened, without one single original member. This idea has my vote!
ReplyDeleteliedgut is a modern masterpiece and Florian Schneider is contributing! methinks he's off to far more interesting projects than the current minimum-maximum live re-hash!
ReplyDeleteoh... and, i cant imagine F.S. playing support for sodding ...Radiohead