[1] From 1965 Rother played in the band Spirits of Sound, from which other members would later go on to join Kraftwerk (Wolfgang Flür) and Wunderbar.

Rother is a multi-instrumentalist (primarily guitar and keyboards) who, along with a catalog of several solo albums starting in 1977, is best known for having co-founded the German group Neu!

with drummer Klaus Dinger (five albums between 1971 and 1996), and his collaborative efforts with Hans-Joachim Roedelius and Dieter Moebius (aka Cluster) under the name Harmonia (two albums, one in 1974 and 1975, with later 1976 sessions recorded with Brian Eno; the studio tapes for the latter disappeared but were found by Roedelius two decades later; he remixed the tapes and released the results as Tracks and Traces in 1997; Rother was the main producer for the version re-released in 2009).

[2] Rother and Dinger were also in a short-lived version of Kraftwerk in 1971, with Florian Schneider, during a time when founding member Ralf Hütter had temporarily left the band (this version of the group was filmed during an appearance on the German music show Beat Club, which has been available sporadically on VHS and DVD).

[citation needed] Beginning in the late 1970s, Rother began issuing LPs under his own name: Flammende Herzen (1977), Sterntaler (1978), and Katzenmusik (1979) all featured drums by Can drummer Jaki Liebezeit.

On 1 July 2007, Rother joined the Red Hot Chili Peppers for a live jam at the end of their concert in Hamburg.

[4] On 27 November 2007, a Harmonia reunion concert was announced for Berlin, where they performed together live for the first time since 1976.

and Harmonia at the ATP festival in Camber Sands, England, accompanied by the Berlin-based band Camera.

& Harmonia at an underground music festival in Berlin called Synasthesie II, alongside notable acts such as Cavern of Anti-Matter.