Anyone who's seen the thriller starring Ryan Gosling remembers the hero's scorpion jacket or the "Nightcall" title that encapsulates the credits.

Passed unnoticed when it was released in 2010, this piece climbed to the top of the international charts in 2011 thanks to the film.

And is logically found in the first album ("OutRun" in 2013) of its author, Kavinsky, little French prodigy of electro.

"Nightcall" now peaks at more than 230 million plays on Spotify, the world's leading music platform.

And then, radio silence, until "Reborn", the second album which comes out this Friday.

An anomaly in a music industry where artists multiply projects when it's "their time" as they say in the business.

"To answer very honestly, I had a good time (laughs), traveled quite a bit, did a lot of things that have nothing to do with music", sums up Kavinsky, always so discreet, reached on the phone by the AFP.

"I wanted to get away from it all after the success of +Nightcall+, I felt a little too much pressure to continue, I didn't want to disappoint people with something that wouldn't have been in the same vein or that would have been in the same vein", continues "Vinco", nickname for his close friends of Vincent Belorgey.

With Daft Punk 15 years ago

"Reborn" is more timeless than its predecessor, though 1980s hues still reflect on the album's bodywork.

The concept is a continuation of "OutRun", since we find there the fictional double of Kavinsky -- a zombie -- as we can see in the first clip "Renegade", already released.

Kavinsky during the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival at Empire Polo Field on April 26, 2008 in Indio, California Charley Gallay Getty Images North America/Getty Images/AFP/Archives

His character's vehicle, a Ferrari Testarossa, an iconic model born in the 1980s, will also return in future videos according to teasers on social networks.

But the mechanics have changed.

If "OutRun" came out of computers, the real instruments punctuate "Reborn", like these saxophone and guitar on "Zenith".

And, the cast of mechanics will make the competition swoon.

Among the co-composers of certain pieces, we find all the musicians of Phoenix or even Gaspard Augé (half of Justice) and SebastiAn.

Either the cream of this pop or electro "made in France" which is exported.

SebastiAn and Kavinsky are old accomplices, since they both opened for Daft Punk 15 years ago, at the time of the famous tour of the helmeted duo perched on a pyramid.

SebastiAn, in addition to his solo records, is now a prominent producer, alongside Charlotte Gainsbourg and Juliette Armanet.

"With the windows open"

"SebastiAn gets up in the morning and makes music before his coffee. Me, it's when I feel like it": Kavinsky admits it, without the confinements which "refocused him on music because we could no longer do nothing", there might not have been a second album.

A disc where we also find the voices of Sébastien Tellier or Prudence (ex-half of The Dø).

Finally, we obviously ask Kavinsky to spin the automobile metaphor to compare his two discs.

"+ OutRun + was an album that you couldn't listen to with your windows open as it was frenetic. With + Reborn +, you can drive slower, with the windows open", he laughs.

Kavinsky during the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival at Empire Polo Field on April 26, 2008 in Indio, California Charley Gallay Getty Images North America/Getty Images/AFP/Archives

Because it is not a legend, for the forties, "the ultimate test" for an album is the car.

"It's true, it's the best place to listen to music for me, in my car rather than in my living room (laughs), with everything you see around".

With him, the landscapes scroll by listening, sometimes urban and nocturnal, as Nicolas Winding Refn, director of "Drive", had well smelled it.

© 2022 AFP