Kyan Khojandi reveals his dark side with “The event horizon”, his “first last album”

Some have known him with the phenomenon Short on Canal +, or behind the series Blocked and Serge the mytho. Others applauded him on stage, in the show Impulses in 2016, or more recently in A good evening, whose tour will end in January. Either way, the laughter was never far away. But, when we meet Kyan Khojandi in mid-December, it’s not to discuss comedy or humor, but music. From his music to him.

Earlier this month, he unveiled The event horizon, his first album. Or, as he likes to point out, his “first last album”, this project not intended to launch his career as a singer but rather to turn a page in his life. When we ask him if he wants to get out of his comedic image, he replies: “Everyone puts us in a box, it’s not us who put ourselves in it, it’s the people who do it.” “

Mea culpa, let’s get rid of our preconceptions. “This album reflects my mental picture from before,” he explains. The first piece, which gives its title to the opus, already says a lot. “I want to bounce back, like a desire to heal, like a desire not to die / I spent an entire year in a black hole, and if I do nothing… There will always be this trap under me”, he does on piano and violin notes. It is the preamble of a dark album, tinged with anger, bitterness, sadness but also with some touches of humor and light. The fog dissipates as the titles scroll. The whole gives a very personal and intimate creation containing several facets of its author.

“We tried to create a format that looked like me”

“In public I am the person who writes texts and who tries to make people laugh. In private, I have my music, ”says Kyan Khojandi. He plays the viola, an instrument he studied at the conservatory for fifteen years. However, he considers that he has “never been an excellent musician”. Not false modest for a penny, he specifies: “To be a musician, a singer, a rapper, in all the arts, you have to perform at least ten years to be good. I didn’t want to do something I didn’t know how to do. On the other hand, I think I know how to interpret. “

Neither musician nor singer on this album, Kyan performs his lyrics on sublime productions by composer Clément Libes, whom he met during a BigFlo and Oli concert in Toulouse. We also find Guillaume Brière of The Shoes for the title Häagen-Dazs and Ben Mazué behind the chorus of I hate you. “We tried to create a format that looked like me. I haven’t tried to play someone. I have too much respect for artists. I like to hum, I’m super good in my shower but it stops there, ”Kyan acknowledges with humility.

Neither rap nor slam, the author puts his voice on the music. And it is not without recalling the Fauve touch which marked the years 2010. “I am not hiding it at all, on the contrary, he assures us. They are the ones who really brought to France this way of expressing oneself on an album, the spoken word. When I listened to Fauve I told myself that this would be exactly the way I would express myself with music. I allowed myself on a smaller scale to follow in their footsteps. “

“I have satisfied anger, anxieties, fears”

To the fury mingled with hope on the intro track The event horizon succeeds Häagen-Dazs, a song about a breakup: “Basically I left to write jokes in a bar. This text came out in a row, it’s a V1 [une première version]. I can not explain it. “

Kyan Khojandi also discusses toxic relationships as well as the death of his father in the very moving The last the last. “When I wrote, afterwards, I was knocked out. for three or four hours I was releasing so much emotional stuff. I have satisfied anger, anxieties, fears. Like I’m pulling nails out of my skin, ”he says. Fruit of an accumulation of notes in his phone, this album is also the culmination of a therapeutic work on himself. He wanted to understand why we keep repeating the same mistakes that cyclically lead us into the same dead ends.

“I have had romantic, friendly or work encounters several times which made me feel worse. I often found myself going into those relationships that didn’t suit me, but I went with enthusiasm anyway. I was wrong and I was starting from zero, ”he analyzes.

It is therefore necessary to see, and to hear, in this album a questioning, a taking of distance on its problems in order to stop this destructive mental diagram: “Even if it is complicated and that one is in a society where everything goes. quickly, we have a lot of things to do, children to take care of, things to see, the pandemic which adds a layer of stress … At one point I think that we must also know how to regulate our intimate to go better. Without being moralistic. It avoids falling back into the same traps. “

“I am neither a box to laugh, nor a box to cry”

In short, this album, “it’s writing to get better”. And you can feel it when you listen to it. It ends on a bright note with a title in which Kyan Khojandi thanks his audience. It is thus a peaceful author that we meet at the end of the year. ” I’m fine ! I am approaching a new road and I like it. It’s a new book and all the pages are cool to read. “

Serene from a personal point of view, he is also on the pro side. “I have the impression that the project has been very well received as a whole. I received hundreds of messages from people who listened to it, gave me their opinions and shared their enthusiasm and surprise. Many told me that at the beginning they did not dare to listen to it, lots of people took the plunge and were pleasantly surprised, so it touches me, ”he confides.

To those who did not necessarily expect to see Kyan Khojandi in the musical field, and even less in such a dark and intimate register, he rightly recalls that all his creations, from Short at Blocked Passing by Impulses, “Have never refrained from dealing with serious subjects”. “The specter is huge when you tell stories. I am neither a box to laugh, nor a box to cry, I am a box. And nothing will prevent us tomorrow from doing hang-gliders if we want to do it. »We end with a smile.

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