Florian Schneider, the co-founder of German electronic music pioneers Kraftwerk, has died, SPIN has confirmed. He was 73. “Kraftwerk co-founder and electro pioneer Ralf Alf Hütter has sent us the very sad news that his friend and companion over many decades Florian Schneider has passed away from a short cancer disease just a few days after his 73rd birthday,” a band rep said in a statement. In 1970, Schneider formed Kraftwerk with Ralf Hütter after first meeting at the Academy of Arts in Remscheid, then at the Robert Schumann Hochschule in Düsseldorf. From then until his 2008 departure, the group was widely praised for their futuristic keyboard-based sound or in their own words, “robot-pop.” Kraftwerk were set to embark on a North American tour this summer to celebrate their 50th anniversa...