Kavinsky

There is one song that sums up Kavinsky’s debut perfectly. The horror-noir synths, the references to the Testarossa and “shades” (Wayfarers, one presumes), the obligatory rent-a-rapper – it’s all there. But you won’t actually find this song on OutRun. In fact, you won’t find it in Kavinsky’s discography at all. The song is ‘00:01’ by fellow Frenchman Franck Rivoire, better known as Danger. Both artists have followed parallel paths over the years; adopting animated characters as personas and employing many of the same musical tropes almost interchangeably across three EPs. And whilst prone to rather lengthy hiatuses, fans were nonetheless hopeful a full-length would come sooner rather than later; an album to soundtrack their mid-noughties New Rave Haçienda. It seemed the snail race was indeed on...

Cut to 2011 and Nicolas Winding Refn's Drive sends Kavinsky stratospheric. That film’s opener, ‘Nightcall’, found him with a new audience expecting more of the same; something bigger. “I wasn't really sure why I needed an album, to be honest… [But] because of Drive… it kicked my ass a little bit to finish it.” And hats off to Kavinsky for not attempting to replicate its success; rather than giving us an album’s worth of ‘Nightcalls’ (no bad thing of course), what we have instead are the sinister theatrics of ‘Roadgame’, the hair-metal stomp of ‘Blizzard’, the chip-tune pop of ‘Dead Cruiser’, and the Billy Ocean soul-infused ‘First Blood’. However, there is one tragic instance here where variation undoubtedly falls flat. ‘Suburbia’ features a depressingly uninspired rap by Havoc of Mobb Deep, who uses the word “car” a dozen times along with clichéd ghetto-fabulous rhymes aplenty. When you are trying to mentally place yourself into the neon-lit skyline of a Miami Vice car chase, lyrics about Twitter and Facebook really do throw you off.

Where OutRun excels is in inducing a severe sense of nostalgia in media consumers of a certain age; held together by a plot that only proves Kavinsky won’t so much get swallowed up by the retro-futurist revival as he will embrace it.  Fans of Vincent Belorgey will know the folklore: his is the story of a lovelorn young man who, after crashing his beloved Ferrari Testarossa, becomes some sort of zombie/car hybrid... The year is 1986 and this zombie also makes some serious electro shit. As any 80s VHS connoisseur will tell you, this vaguely recalls the story of The Wraith, released, not coincidentally, in 1986 (the album title itself is also borrowed from Sega’s 1986 arcade game of the same name). And while the details of the narrative are perhaps a little blurry if taken afresh, Kavinsky nonetheless succeeds in making an album that suggests that it's the soundtrack to something, and at least makes clear that it has to do with cars and the 80s. The album even comes with elaborate ‘film’ stills as postcards.

Yet for all its glorious synaesthesia you can’t help but wonder what OutRun should have been; an album somewhere between Giorgio Moroder’s ‘Tony’s Theme’, Tangerine Dream’s Thief and Michel Rubini, Paul Hertzog, and John Carpenter on a good day; the lost 80s soundtrack. Kavinsky’s strength has always been in not updating his sound; in being resolutely homage. And, like his musical forefathers, he’s certainly never needed vocals to project his 80s vision. As such, for all its dubious guest raps and newfound distortion (thanks, no doubt, to album producer SebastiAn) it would be unjust to call OutRun a thoroughly authentic throwback, although it is, at times, a satisfying reimagining.

Danger, the world awaits your response…