French musician Kavinsky found dead | Hacker News Reader

French musician Kavinsky found dead

euronews.com

342 pointsbristleworm80 comments

I ran a fairly popular electronic music blog [1] in France between 2009 and 2014 and met him multiple times. I’m really sad he’s no longer with us. He was an icon of this bloghouse era with the Ed Banger crew. Rest in peace Vinco, you’ll be missed.

I can’t say I’m surprised though as most DJs during that era were known to abuse all kinds of substances and had to manage a non existent sleep schedule, long flights all around the world, and jet lag. It takes a toll on your body.

The entire industry is sharing stories about him today and The Toxic Avenger (Simon) shared a funny one about a set in Zurich https://x.com/toxavanger/status/2082434657300177372

[1] https://www.stopthenoise.fr/

Definitely linked to you many times (I ran a blog called ilictronix in high school). Small world! Great posts over the years.

Thank you! Small world indeed! I’m glad the blog resonated with people as much as it did. I shared mp3 with friends back then and firmly believed that more people in France and around the world would love the same music as much as we did. Kudos for still posting on yours after all the years. That’s an insane feat! I really wished I kept going but starting my career in Paris in 2014 killed the momentum. I worked on the blog from 6pm to midnight pretty much every day after school and couldn’t do the same once I started working. I’ll bring it back one day! In the meantime, I’ll definitely check ilictronix. Thanks for sharing with the world. Love the MySpace like personal website with flat Eric!

Ah ! So it was you... I have like 300 mp3s from your blog. Also, Fluokids.

Yes! I don’t know how many mp3s I shared on it but definitely a lot! It was wild to be able to do this with the support of the artists and the labels. I’m glad you still have them (I do too). The blog is still online if you want a trip down memory lane but sadly the download links are not. Thanks for being part of the adventure and sorry for messing up the ID3 tags of each mp3.

Mais non ! J'ai toujours été attristé par la fin de Stop The Noise. Aucune intention de rallumer le flambeau ? :)

Haha le crossover HN improbable ! C’était une fin sans vraiment l’être. Je n’ai jamais vraiment fermé le chapitre. L’intention a toujours été la, plein de fois pour être franc. Encore plus récemment. J’ai envie de faire ça bien donc ça prendra un peu de temps mais l’envie est clairement là :)

you and hypemachine helped fill my ipod and car stereo. thank you!

Oh I loved Hypem! I actually visited the website again yesterday and found a cool track within 10s. It’s still alive and kicking. For some reasons, they never accepted my submission to have STN on it. Thanks for being a part of the adventure and I hope you still have those mp3s.

Also rcrdlbl.com! It didn't have as much, but a higher density of good stuff IME.

That said, finding good stuff on Hype Machine is not that difficult: 1. Find a track that you like (this may take a while), 2. Browse collections of people who liked that track.

ed banger rules - cant go wrong with any of their catalogue

He's rightly credited as having participated in the popularization of the musical and visual "Synthwave" aesthetic:

https://aesthetics.fandom.com/wiki/Synthwave

There’s a while sub genre of synthwave named after his album OutRun. Which, by the way, is best experienced while driving on the highway at night.

https://www.reddit.com/r/outrun/

Synthwave genre named after the video game Out Run.

Is it possible that both the album and the genre are named after the video game? or it could be some kind of chain (genre->album->video game)

Now i just want to play outrun. I wonder if there's an arcade nearby...

The videogame is from the '80s; it became iconic partially because it allowed players to choose the music to listen to "in the car", all of them synths (obviously), and one of the songs you could choose was called "Splash Wave".

Folks like Kavinsky later (re)popularized synths and made explicit throwbacks to the game, like the album name. I don't know where the term "Synthwave" came from, but it does look like one of those throwbacks.

Synthwave name is more likely to be related various "wave" genres, like Darkwave or Coldwave.

Maybe most recognizable: New Wave

Certainly we should celebrate Morodor here too...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpW3C_k0WMY

I'm only just now realizing that Beach House [1] might also have picked up on that synth aesthetic because the lead singer's father is French and she was in Paris for school in the early 2000s before coming back to the states to go to Vassar (she went to school with some of my friends). It probably was percolating around Paris at that time.

But also 80s synths were just really cheap around then. I picked up a Juno 60 with a flight case for around $400, including shipping, in about 2002.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beach_House

Interesting theory, but fwiw synths were quite popular among the Baltimore music scene throughout the 00s. Besides Beach House, there was Dan Deacon, Future Islands, Celebration, among others. Lake Trout was another example, although a few years earlier / different scene. Ditto with Cex.

Oh yeah, absolutely. There were tons here in Brooklyn as well, probably because you could pick up a DX7 or a Juno for a few hundred dollars. No one wanted them. I remember one guy gave me a Wurlitzer 200 for free when I went to pickup a Rhodes from him because he just didn't want it.

But yeah, I still wonder if she was aware of that scene when she was in Paris or not.

Yes, especially his work own the movie 'Drive' was hugely influential on the popularisation of this genre. I think he was featured in the documentary "The Rise of the Synths" also (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rise_of_the_Synths)

RIP

Loved "Nightcall", shame to lose him. It was a was a happy surprise to see him get a feature at the 2024 closing ceremonies, RIP.

Nightcall was kind of the anthem of my life for my early 20s. Still captures a moment. RIP.

I'm a big fan of french electro and Kavinsky is no exception: I discovered him and his Nightcall hit through the soundtrack of the movie Drive.

IIRC he got into electronic music late in his life after a friend gave him a long-outdated Atari ST running Cubase (DAW).

RIP.

Same here! Any recommendations for newer french electro artists?

Not exactly new but newer, Polo and Pan are great.

I enjoy Vitalic, not sure if he's newer but has decent body of work :)

Older I think but still active.

Wouldn’t say newer as have been around a while but French79 (start with Hometown) are brilliant.

+1 for French79, especially his album “Olympic” (2016)

Newer is not specifically it since I'm getting a bit too "old / nostalgia" now, but here is a small list (songs chosen are not specifically their biggest but ones I like to come back to)

French79

- Hometown https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yAv5pLO37mE

NTO

- Invisible https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFIcEwCPWZ8

Worakls

- Trauma Worakls Remix https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6QFfmwFT3k&list=RDf6QFfmwFT...

- Salzburg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tTber0f8qc&list=RD_tTber0f8...

Uppermost

- sooo many ... Dance is iconic to me https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TeOByrJgak

- Flashback https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZAECHHJ8U4

- but his Revolution album gives a good walk around https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83zdpv_ovow

Gesaffelstein

- Hate or Glory https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_NgkfRmUPk

- Viol https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYtpobVmYY4

M83

- you probably already know them, but Outro https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eyjj8BgsBGU

Danger

- 4h30 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YVUo4W4XFiI (my personnal king of "you had to be there", thus a live music exemple)

Justice

- Stress (warning it and its clip are true to its name, it got awards, it got also banned from primetime) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWaWsgBbFsA

- D.A.N.C.E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sy1dYFGkPUE

Or a ton more really, JM Jarre / Daft Punk / David Guetta really help breed an insane french electro scene each on their own way.

EDIT: in a Kavinsky thread I feel like I should include

Carpenter Brut

- Turbo Killer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=er416Ad3R1g

- Le Perv https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYtVf0wvPpc

Pertubator

- Future Club (you know it from Hotline Miami) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RY66fdMt4vc

Danger and justice! Great mentions!

Also worth mentioning the game Haven that Danger did the soundtrack for, one of the few game soundtracks that are great independent of the game as well:

https://haven-game.bandcamp.com/album/haven-original-soundtr...

Floating around listening to music is nice once you get the hang of it (took me a while). With a bigger budget could have been one of the best games ever; as it is there are some significant limitations but I recommend it:

https://www.gog.com/en/game/haven

I'll add Lueur Verte:

https://lueurverte.bandcamp.com/album/crystalica-ep

Would throw Air in there, though it's more chillout/triphop than techno:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBVK7Z9AyNM&list=RDZBVK7Z9Ay...

Thanks for this! I created a Spotify list for future reference: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3QbfwerjjiFUvip6Xbkbq6?si=...

My fave b N'to

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPpPRFEXWwQ

i will "yes, and" with tepr - minuit jacuzzi https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jh1XNjd_HN0

Also, London Grammar did a great cover:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZYw0MQp_fI

Adding Lewis Ofman, Sebastian and Paradis

Carpenter Brut

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL9e7gmwejeGr7aqhn9A4h...

Maxime Dangles

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsyQZip5xLI

Arnaud Rebotini

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKRfDdsPewQ

Terence Fixmer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DqPzHloXppc

Mödern (6 & 7 are good too IMO)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7lbZzeBe_JQ&list=PLmmhQqegVx...

Lazerhawk - Redline (not french but my favourite Synthwave album)

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLYc-KHaHGswVjvp4UuqBY...

Perturbator https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Bi2nc_De90

Gesaffelstein https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2vOHYbd5Gs

Nothing more to add here but lovely to see yours and the commentor above you's tastes. I got well into a few of these artists after playing Hotline Miami for far too many hours (followed by HM2, platinum on both).

Terrible shame about Kavinsky :(

I really like ANORAAK

For French musicians (who haven't already been named), I'd also recommend Madeon, Laurent Garnier, and Noisy Freaks.

For an American musician in the synthwave genre (a bit like Kavinsky), I'd also recommend Com Truise

It really hit a specific vibe. RIP to a legend.

His Nightcall performance during the 2024 Paris Olympics closing ceremony got me into Synthwave. Really sad to see him go :(

Between letting Kavinsky play at the closing ceremony [0] and Gojira play at the opening ceremony [1], I really can't applaud and thank Thomas Jolly enough for directing the 2024 Olympic ceremonies.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSayp2tArqA

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8Iv5kq93K4

That Gojira opening has been the most EPIC ceremony I've seen anywhere.

I remember I got so excited that I started jumping on my couch and accidentally knocked over a stand with my collectibles and food. Five-second rule, so I still ate my nuggets afterward, hehe. My partner complained a lot, but... some of these things... only a few of us get. Gojira is definitely not for everybody. It's an acquired taste that only a select few of us get to enjoy.

According to the BBC article, he was complaining of headaches since the last few days and authorities believe that he might have had a stroke

[0] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c204n74xyv3o

Oh non :(

Sa musique est une source d’inspiration fantastique, c’est vraiment une triste nouvelle

I like this interview with him from 2008 https://foolsgoldrecs.com/2008/09/17/fools-gold-qa-vol2-kavi...

Didn't realize he was in his 50s.

Darn shame.

Aktchually 50s start at age 51

I'd say they start at 49, as that is the beginning of your 50th year.

get enough software people in a room and everything becomes the fencepost problem.

Encore un que je regrette de ne pas avoir vu. RIP Kavinsky.

A true loss for synthwave music. His music was amazing and rich and exciting in a way that many artists fail to reach.

Starcardian also died this year - killed in a road accident whilst cycling

Damn didn't know that. I might be the top listener of Interspace on the planet. RIP

Amazing artist. Thanks for all the work. Rip

https://youtu.be/MV_3Dpw-BRY

The breakbot remix is fantastic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRBqhU1juaM

A huge loss for synthwave. Thank you for all of the trips back to a more hopeful time in technology.

Oh man, I just started listening to him a few months ago after a recommendation from a colleague.

And here I thought today couldn't get any worse. :(

look on the bright side, at least you still have internet!

(and here would be a great time for Murphy's Law to kick in and your router to decide to stop working all of a sudden)

He was a whole aesthetic and genre. Love his music!

Rest in peace.

RIP. Loved this mans music

Terrible news. His retro-synth sound was amazing. Had tickets to see him live many years ago and he cancelled the tour.

is there any news or speculation on how ?

"The Paris prosecutor's office said that "an investigation to establish the causes of death" had been opened, noting that no suspect was found at the scene on Tuesday evening."

Its a strange announcement.

It's a mistranslation, the original quote is "Une enquête en recherche des causes de la mort est ouverte afin de déterminer l’origine du décès, aucun élément suspect n’ayant été découvert sur place par les services primo-intervenants. Les investigations sont en cours", which translates to "no suspicious element was found", not "no suspect was found"

Thanks for clarifying

Purely speculative but he's been known for his excessive drinking for a while now, sad news.

Authorities believe it was a stroke, he had been complaining of headaches for several days prior.

RIP ... loved his work.

Glen Hansard gone too.

Shit day for music. But they'll always live on from their incredible contributions.

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