Florian Schneider had died at the age of 73, Billboard has confirmed. The German musician was best known for being one of the founding members of electronic music group Kraftwerk.
Florian, whose full surname was Schneider-Esleben, founded the group alongside Ralf Hutter in 1970, two years after they met at the Academy of Arts in Remscheid, Germany.
Florian, whose main instrument was the flute, was cited as one of David Bowie's influences. Bowie titled an instrumental track on his album Heroes, V-2 Schneider, after the musician.
Bowie was heavily influenced by Kraftwerk's sound during the 'Berlin' period in the late 1970s. A multi-talented artist, Florian played the synthesizer, vocoder, flute and sax.