--- title: "Kavinsky, the producer behind \"Nightcall,\" has died at 50" url: https://djing.com/blog/kavinsky-nightcall-producer-dies-2026 markdown_url: https://djing.com/blog/kavinsky-nightcall-producer-dies-2026.md description: "The French synthwave artist whose \"Nightcall\" scored Drive was found dead at his Paris home on 28 July 2026." type: article site: DJing.com author: "DJing" category: "DJ News" date_published: 2026-07-29T09:05:57+00:00 date_modified: 2026-07-29T09:05:57+00:00 language: en image: /img/blog/kavinsky-nightcall-producer-dies-2026.webp keywords: - "Kavinsky" - "Nightcall" - "Vincent Belorgey" - "synthwave" - "Drive soundtrack" - "French electro" - "OutRun" - "electronic music" - "DJ news" translations: ar: https://djing.com/ar/blog/kavinsky-nightcall-producer-dies-2026.md de: https://djing.com/de/blog/kavinsky-nightcall-producer-dies-2026.md es: https://djing.com/es/blog/kavinsky-nightcall-producer-dies-2026.md fi: https://djing.com/fi/blog/kavinsky-nightcall-producer-dies-2026.md fr: https://djing.com/fr/blog/kavinsky-nightcall-producer-dies-2026.md it: https://djing.com/it/blog/kavinsky-nightcall-producer-dies-2026.md ja: https://djing.com/ja/blog/kavinsky-nightcall-producer-dies-2026.md no: https://djing.com/no/blog/kavinsky-nightcall-producer-dies-2026.md pt: https://djing.com/pt/blog/kavinsky-nightcall-producer-dies-2026.md sv: https://djing.com/sv/blog/kavinsky-nightcall-producer-dies-2026.md --- # Kavinsky, the producer behind "Nightcall," has died at 50 Vincent Belorgey, the French musician the world knew as **Kavinsky**, has died at 50. He was found at his home in Paris on Tuesday, 28 July 2026. The Paris prosecutor's office said it had opened an investigation into the cause of death and that nothing at the scene pointed to foul play. He would have turned 51 three days later. If you know one Kavinsky record, it is almost certainly "Nightcall." He released it in 2010 with Lovefoxxx of the Brazilian band CSS on the answering vocal, and in 2011 it opened Nicolas Winding Refn's film *Drive*. The track played over the opening credits while Ryan Gosling's getaway driver rolled through a neon Los Angeles, and that one placement did something rare. It took a cult electro song and made a whole generation recognize it from the first synth line. The name was a mask, and he liked it that way. "Kavinsky is a character I created, because just putting my face on a record sleeve is not something that suits me," he once said. The story he wrote for that character became the whole aesthetic. A driver crashes a Ferrari Testarossa in 1986 and comes back as an undead musician, red eyes, blue skin, still recording from the far side of the wreck. That B-movie idea gave his 2013 debut album its title, *OutRun*, and a lot of the look people now file under synthwave. He came to music sideways. He had acted before he produced, and only started making tracks around 2005, after friends in the French electronic scene handed him a computer and pointed him at a synthesizer. Much of the early Kavinsky sound came out of one Yamaha DX7 and a deep love of eighties film scores. He released on Record Makers and kept his catalogue small and sharp rather than sprawling. What came after filled in the myth. "Odd Look" paired him with SebastiAn, then carried a version featuring The Weeknd. He went quiet for years, then returned in 2022 with a second album, *Reborn*, which suited him. And in one of the warmer surprises of his career, he played a new take on "Nightcall" with Angèle and Phoenix at the closing ceremony of the 2024 Paris Olympics. A hometown crowd got to hear a song that had gone around the world come back to the city where he lived. ## Why he mattered to DJs Kavinsky was as much a favorite behind the decks as on the radio. "Nightcall" and the *OutRun* tracks handed DJs a mood that was hard to find anywhere else: slow, cinematic, a little menacing, built for the last hour of the night instead of the peak. A wave of synthwave and outrun producers grew out of that sound, and you can still hear him in sets that reach for eighties nostalgia without tipping into pastiche. He proved a record could take its time and still hold a room. The cause of his death is not known yet, and there is no reason to guess at it. What is not in doubt is the size of the gap he leaves. A short run of records that says more than most long ones. A character who outlasted his own invented ending. And one song that will keep opening films and long night drives for years. Rest easy, Kavinsky. --- Source: [Kavinsky, the producer behind "Nightcall," has died at 50](https://djing.com/blog/kavinsky-nightcall-producer-dies-2026) on DJing.com. Free to quote and cite with attribution and a link to the source URL. Full index of DJing.com content in Markdown: https://djing.com/blog/llms.txt