Michael Rother

Spirits of Sound, Neu! and Harmonia

Michael Rother was born on September 2, 1950 in Hamburg and was educated in Munich, Wilmslow in England, Karachi and Dusseldorf; Wikipedia cites exposure to Pakistani music as an influence. He played guitar in Spirits of Sound in Dusseldorf from 1965 to 1971. In 1971 he had a short spell in Kraftwerk with Klaus Dinger, a line-up the German Wikipedia states and the English page tags as needing a citation, and then formed Neu! with Dinger, who made the albums of 1972, 1973 and 1975, with Neu! 4 in 1995 and Neu! '86 in 2010. In 1973 or 1974 he formed Harmonia with Hans-Joachim Roedelius and Dieter Moebius, making Musik von Harmonia (1974) and Deluxe (1975); sessions with Brian Eno in 1976 were released as Tracks and Traces in 1997.

His solo albums began with Flammende Herzen (Sky, March 1977), followed by Sterntaler (1978), Katzenmusik (1979), Fernwarme (1982), Lust (1983), Sussherz und Tiefenscharfe (1985), Traumreisen (1987), Esperanza (1996), Remember (2004, his first with vocals) and Dreaming (2020, on Groenland). In 1983 he was among the first German musicians to produce with the Fairlight CMI, in his Katzenmusik home studio. He returned to the stage in 1998 at KOMM 98 in Dusseldorf after 22 years, played a Harmonia reunion in Berlin on November 27, 2007, and a trio Hallogallo with Steve Shelley and Aaron Mullan in 2010. The Solo box set (February 22, 2019) collects the first four solo albums, with Solo II following in 2020, and he made As Long as the Light with Vittoria Maccabruni in 2022. His band includes Hans Lampe on drums and Franz Bargmann on guitar. Tours between 2024 and 2026 include Australia and the US.

Echoes traces influence from his work to Radiohead, Stereolab and Sonic Youth, and Wikipedia notes he appears in the documentaries Romantic Warriors IV: Krautrock and 1971: The Year That Changed Everything.