Charles Kieny (CKRAFT)
photo by Manuel Braun
What are your top five albums that were released in 2024? (In order 1-5)
Honestly I find this to be an incredibly difficult question because the things I listen to the most are generally oldies (classic jazz records, 2000s metal records and Middle Ages chants!) and, at the same time, this year was so crazy full of awesome releases! So here’s how I’ll do it: I’ll just check my streaming platforms' history and randomly throw in some of the 2024 records that I enjoyed, in the chronological order of their release. Spoiler: mostly weird stuff!
Chrones - ZONE
(Very) angry avant-garde jazz quartet led by a good friend of mine, Pierre-Marie Lapprand, a real sax virtuoso and hell of a composer.
Kilter - La Suspendida
This is a jazz-metal opera led by bassist and composer Laurent David.
Folterkammer - Weibermacht
Black metal with operatic singing led by singer Andromeda Anarchia and Imperial Triumphant’s Zachary Ezrin.
Imperial Triumphant - Vile Luxury “Redux 1924”
Speaking of Imperial Triumphant... This is a remaster of their legendary 2018 record.
Ever Forthright - Techinflux
This is virtuoso guitarist Nick Llerandi's band. Awesome indescribable techy stuff topped with unexpected clean singing (which I usually have a hard time with, but the riffs are out of this world, so in the end the combination is killing!)
What band did you discover in 2024 (can be a brand new band or an older band) that had an impact on your life? How so?
I discovered Knocked Loose through their new album You Won't Go Before You're
Supposed To, which blew my mind. It reminded me of the feeling I had when I
discovered Suicide Silence with their 2020 record Become The Hunter, or all those KoRn albums back in the 2000s, in terms of heaviness. It just feels like… such a straightforward, “honest” violence, you know what I mean? It’s so groovy and flexible, you can really hear the musicians smash their instruments, the grooves are simple in a way, but they’re executed with such a crushing rage in their sound.
How will you remember 2024 (in terms of music)?
Like the previous few years I guess, a lot of very technical, fast, nerdy stuff coming out every week. I may sound old-fashioned, but music nowadays feels a bit “cold” and computerized in comparison with the older stuff I mentioned before. I keep on rambling about Knocked Loose (sorry) but I think they really bring back some kind of human feel to the metal/extreme/produced music listening experience and their 2024 album completely deserves its fame in my humble opinion!
What can we look forward to from you in 2025?
We’re releasing our new album, Uncommon Grounds, on January 17. You can pre-save it here.
It’s jazz-metal that clearly has death/prog influences as well as medieval melodies, just like our first record, Epic Discordant Vision, two years ago.
What records are you looking forward to most in 2025?
The one we’re mostly looking forward to is our own, of course! We put so much love, energy, sweat, tears (and blood occasionally) into it. It might seem a bit self-centered but it can only be that one really.
I recently discovered a very original 5-piece band from Amsterdam called Behind Closed Doors. It’s a super unexpected combination of instruments (cello, viola, violin, bass, drums, guitar!), led by guitarist and composer Chris Teuschel. They released a new single (“prichitat | stabat filius”) with guitar soloing vibes that remind me of Fredrik Thordendal and Alan Holdsworth, as well as… cello chugging! Cello is probably my favorite instrument, and Chris’ music sounds fantastic so I’m really looking forward to Behind Closed Doors’ full-length album as well as seeing the whole band play live!
I also write for cellos by the way, here’s my cello-cello-accordion trio, CrozPhonics:
I’m finishing mixing an album for that project at the moment, it will probably be released in 2025 as well so I’m looking forward to that one too!
How do you try to get your news to fans as media platforms and algorithms change?
Well our whole musical identity is quite unexpected and the instrument I play is
surprising too (it’s a kind of augmented synth-accordion) so it can be a challenge for new fans to wrap their heads around our thing, if they only see/hear a snippet on social medias. Let alone be noticed by algorithms. Therefore we recently started taking this issue very seriously and working hard to communicate as clearly as possible around this new release. For the past few months a videographer followed us in rehearsals and concerts and also interviewed me with a professional setup, and is now making all of our social media much neater and more organized, so hopefully our weird jazz-metal with saxophone and accordion will reach a lot of new ears in 2025!
Charles Kieny – social media links
- Instagram: @ckraft_band
