Pioneering Electronic Music Artist Kavinsky Found Dead in Paris
The French synthwave producer's track 'Nightcall' remains a cultural touchstone with over a half a billion streams. The post Pioneering Electronic Music Artist Kavinsky Found Dead in Paris appeared first on EDM .
Kavinsky, the pioneering DJ and producer whose influential work helped popularize the synthwave genre, has died at his home in Paris. He was 50.
The French artist, whose real name was Vincent Belorgey, was found dead on Tuesday evening, according to French news outlet Le Figaro. The Paris prosecutors’ office has opened an investigation into the cause of death, and said in a statement that first responders had found “no suspicious elements” at the scene.
Belorgey had reportedly complained of headaches in the days leading up to his death. Authorities are now examining whether or not he suffered a stroke.
Belorgey, who at one point toured with Daft Punk, was born in Seine-Saint-Denis in 1975. After a period working as an actor and appearing in films by the influential French filmmaker Quentin Dupieux, who makes music as Mr. Oizo, he turned his attention to music production. He then built the character of Kavinsky, an undead driver who had returned from a fatal Ferrari crash to make electronic music, styled after 1980s action films, arcade games and sports cars.
He released his first work through the influential French label Record Makers in the mid-2000s, putting out the EPs Teddy Boy and 1986 before the single that would define his career. The brooding ‘Nightcall,’ released back in 2010, was a slow-burning, palpitating track built around a vocoded hook and a sense of dread that felt fitting for a midnight highway chase.
The song’s reputation was transformed a year later, when the director Nicolas Winding Refn used it to open his film Drive, starring Ryan Gosling as a stoic, nameless getaway driver. The pairing of image and sound became inseparable in the minds of a generation of viewers, and ‘Nightcall’ has since been streamed over half a billion times on Spotify alone.
During the closing ceremony at the Paris 2024 Summer Olympics, Belorgey welcomed Angèle and Phoenix onstage for a performance of ‘Nightcall.’ The track broke a Shazam record when more people used the app to discover a song than in any single minute before.
The team at EDM.com expresses our sincere condolences to the family, fans, friends and loved ones of Kavinsky.
The post Pioneering Electronic Music Artist Kavinsky Found Dead in Paris appeared first on EDM.
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