Belgian duo MONOLYTH know that seeing the red flags is not always enough to make you walk away. Formed by Théo Roland and Gaëtan Heymans, the project returns today with Those Habesha Eyes, a song about that dangerously familiar moment when attraction wins over common sense. The questions are already there, and you know opening the door might eventually hurt, but sometimes the spark is too strong to ignore. Who hasn’t been there?
That tension runs through a track that moves between trip-hop, alternative rock and pop without feeling the need to settle anywhere for too long. References to Massive Attack and Portishead make sense, particularly in the darker corners of MONOLYTH’s sound, but so does the duo’s unapologetic pop instinct. Roland takes care of composition, direction and arrangements, while Heymans brings vocals, performance and bass to a project where music is only one part of the picture.
Both are filmmakers too, which explains why the visual side of MONOLYTH feels so closely connected to everything they release. Roland’s short film Unscarred, on which Heymans worked across cinematography, set design and post-production, screened at international festivals in 2023, while the videos for Time to Move On and Twisted Fate were created entirely in-house. For them, making a song and building the world around it seem to be part of the same process.
Those Habesha Eyes brings us one step closer to HABESHA, their six-track debut EP, arriving on October 23. Built as a love story unfolding from the first encounter through attachment, disillusionment and, eventually, acceptance, the record will reveal a little more of itself over the coming weeks before its full release. Exactly one month from now, MONOLYTH will celebrate its arrival with an evening that brings the different sides of the project together. A mini-exhibition by Julie Ghenet will open the night before the duo perform HABESHA live, followed by a DJ set from Sacha Roland. Until then, Those Habesha Eyes leaves us at the beginning of the story, fully aware of the risk and choosing to jump anyway.
