Wednesday, July 29
It’s not unusual for Paris to be quiet at the end of July; half the city absconds to the Atlantic coast or elsewhere in Europe for most of the summer. And even though it is 38 biblical degrees in the middle of a Wednesday afternoon in the French capital, I half expected to see people tumbling out of doors and falling to their knees on the sidewalk following this morning’s news about Kavinsky. The DJ and electro-house pioneer, born Vincent Belorgey, was found dead at his home in Montmartre on Tuesday, three days before turning 51. Le Monde, reporting the next morning, cited a suspected stroke.
“I ascend the steps of the Sacré-Coeur, wondering if I might hear ‘Nightcall’ or ‘Testarossa Autodrive’ wafting from a JLB, but there’s just a guy playing acoustic Shakira covers to families of tourists”
Outpourings of shock and grief immediately filled the internet from all corners, from Hideo Kojima to Emmanuel Macron (who presumably felt the need to chime in because Kavinsky closed the Paris 2024 Summer Olympics, rather than being a bloghaus aficionado). But for now, at least, the streets bear no obvious signs of the tragedy. I swing by the street address for Motorbass studio out of curiosity, but the only activity is coming from the shops either side of Kavinsky’s old haunt; one a cash-only hole in the wall selling boxes of mounted deer skulls and thrifted oddities, the other an empty boutique blasting Gary Jules’ rendition of “Mad World”. I walk past Ed Banger HQ, as I have every day for the past week while staying around the corner, and find the home of Kavinsky’s peers shuttered as usual. In the evening, I ascend the steps of the Sacré-Coeur to catch a glimpse of the buck moon, wondering if I might hear “Nightcall” or “Testarossa Autodrive” wafting from a JBL speaker, but there’s just a guy playing acoustic covers of Shakira to beaming families of tourists.
I don’t know what I was expecting to find in any of these places. Flowers, maybe. A few stray mourners in sunglasses. Mainly I just wanted someone to commune with about it, fan to fan. It only dawned on me halfway through the night just how antithetical all that is to his music.
The body of work Kavinsky leaves behind, released through Record Makers, is small when compared to the scale of his influence. The three albums and two EPs he released over the course of 20+ years have been cited as formative by Lady Gaga, Billie Eilish, Casisdead, and countless more, not to mention the array of artists in the thriving French touch scene, past and present. He’s been sampled by Will Young, used in an advert for a Volvo C40, and worked closely with The Weeknd (whose own sonic world would, by his own admission, simply not exist without Kavinsky). He had an impact on culture at all levels, from Parisian nightlife to Hollywood’s silver screen, becoming, for many, the gateway to synth music.
His neon-lit aesthetic, inspired by 1980s video games, comics, movie soundtracks, and sports cars, built a world that was—is—both solitary and effortlessly cool. “The TV’s always on in my house, so I hear a lot of commercials,” he told Hunger TV in 2013, explaining his disdain for happy music. “All that music that makes you feel good whilst you’re signing an insurance paper; I hate that shit. I wanted to make the opposite.”
“It is deliberately constructed around the image of a man alone at night, out there in the inscrutable dark like an animal, going through something that is to be felt but never articulated”
Kavinsky’s brand of synthpop is slick and menacing; crimson blood on a brand new cleaver in an immaculate kitchen with no one around. It is deliberately constructed around the image of a man alone at night, out there in the inscrutable dark like an animal, going through something that is to be felt but never articulated—hence why it was such a perfect choice to open Nicholas Winding Refn’s 2011 masterpiece Drive, about a Hollywood stunt driver who does exactly that. As far as commercial success goes, the collaboration was the making of both artists, who found common ground in their ominous blend of cool detachment and violent atmosphere.
Supposedly, Belorgey came up with the name Kavinsky at a party because it sounded more enigmatic than “Vincent” and he had no interest in showing his face anyway. Focused more on imagery and storytelling, he developed an elaborate backstory about a zombie-like character who died in the 1980s after fatally crashing his Ferrari Testarossa, and came back to make electronic music. When he stood behind the decks as his alter ego, he did so in a patch-covered racing jacket and sunglasses, two bright red pin-holes gleaming like lasers where his irises ought to be.
Thursday, July 30
“There’s something inside you / It’s hard to explain…”
Arms fly open. Clubbers press their hands together in prayer. Phones are held aloft, offered to the ceiling with the torches on. The Velvet Brothers, a duo at the center of the new-gen touch scene in Paris, embrace behind the decks as “Nightcall” throbs throughout the venue in tribute to Kavinsky. It’s Thursday night at Silencio—the underground (literally, it’s 6 meters below street level) club designed by David Lynch —where hundreds of people have crammed themselves in to watch a contemporary French touch and indie-electro line-up that also includes the Australian dance-pop artist Sam Quealy and American cult duo (and regretful instigators of the “indie sleaze” trend) The Hellp. There are at least 150 more well-dressed, and half-undressed, punters snaking down the side of the venue at 1AM, hoping to get in.
This heartfelt drop comes early in the evening, a show of respect before the duo go on to play a high-energy set smashing together elements of electro, touch, Ed Banger classics, and contemporary club music. It kicks off a night that has the fingerprints of French electro and house progenitors all over it. Some are reluctant to speak about the legacy of an artist whose passing is still so recent.
“For us, Kavinsky is part of a generation that shaped our musical culture,” The Velvet Brothers, aka Robin and Valinar, tell me afterwards, requesting to speak specifically on what Kavinsky means to them. Being younger, they weren’t around to witness the French movement sweep across the English Channel and the Atlantic to begin its domination of 2000s youth culture—but they were raised on the music of Justice, Busy P, and SebastiAn; a generation of immeasurably influential French artists.
“They helped shape our desire to make electronic music that feels alive, visual, and emotional,” they continue. “That period still inspires the way we approach music today. We don’t just admire the records—it was the freedom, the aesthetics, the idea that electronic music could have as much personality, emotion, and cultural impact as rock bands once had. In many ways, they made us believe that a French electronic project could have a strong identity and resonate internationally.”
“He helps you go through the night when you’re alone”
For them, Kavinsky “helped create a world that went far beyond music. It was a scene with its own visual identity, attitude and mythology.
“For us, he will always represent one of the defining figures of that generation.”
The same sentiment prevails in the crowd, which, reflecting the music, is lustily embodying the recklessness and disheveled chic of peak-era electroclash. Half the club is hanging from the lighting rig on the low ceilings and smoking indoors with sunglasses on; I see one girl fully barefoot on the dance floor. The walls are made of strategically placed mirrors and reflective materials. Every five minutes, someone turns a corner and runs directly into their own face.
“His energy—he’s very handsome—his silver hair, his sunglasses…. Very cool sunglasses,” says Robin, who is somehow not melting in a black leather jacket as he reels off all the things he loves about Kavinsky. He yells over the bass: “He helps you go through the night when you’re alone.”
Solitude has always been the prevailing theme of Kavinsky’s music. I think that’s why I went out wandering in search of something on Wednesday and came up short. His music ceases to exist in the daylight. His are songs of empty roads and screeching tires and police radio and almost supernatural mystery (“In just a moment / He’s going to make a turn into the twilight zone…”). While the presence of “Nightcall” serves a particular purpose at Silencio tonight, Kavinsky’s records aren’t actually that well suited to the collective release of a club environment. “I only listen to him when I’m alone, when I’m driving or alone in a park,” Robin continues. “When I’m with friends, like at a house or in a car or whatever, I never go ‘Yo, let’s put on some Kavinsky.’ No one says that. It’s just the way it goes. You listen to him when you’re alone and he makes you feel better.”
Only at night though, of course: “You need to wait for the moon to come out.”
By the time the music ends, it’s 6AM, and the moon is beginning to take itself to bed along with everyone else the club’s matte black doors regurgitate onto the street. Groups of friends are perched on the sidewalk, smoking and waiting for a cab, or maybe just letting the details of the night settle before they go their separate ways. How many people will leave alone? How many will take a car, bus, Metro, or walk home with their headphones on and their highs wearing off, running back tunes from the last seven hours? How many journeys will be soundtracked, as thousands have before and thousands will in the future, by “Nightcall”?
Friday, July 31
On Friday, tributes continue to pour out online. The common theme is cars and loneliness. People romanticizing drunk driving. References to “Nightcall” as the “lonely man anthem.” American dudes threatening to take the Lambo out on the Miami Strip. One last ride. “Gonna drive around at night all mysterious like in his honor,” one X user wrote. “Nightcall is still my number 1 steamed [sic] song on Spotify cause when I was insanely depressed I’d just cruise around in my F150 for hours listening to a Drive (2011), Hotline Miami – inspired Playlist,” wrote another.
In Parisian clubland, Kavinsky’s influence is still palpable. Beyond that, you get the sense it will live on forever anywhere there are people alone in cars at night—in whatever happens after dark between you, your demons, and the open road.
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