1- Hello Sylvain, M IV has been released a year and a half ago. The album’s reception has been overwhelming. What is your hindsight thinking of this record and what can you assess from MONOLITHE’s first decade of existence?

I’m satisfied with this album, which is almost exactly what I wanted to do at the time. I wished to develop a sort of « post » atmosphere, inspired by what is called post-rock and associated musics, in a Extreme Doom Metal manner. I think it works pretty well on this record. I didn’t want to produce a MONOLITHE III number 2, as it would have been the easy way. I know the audience loved that record too, especially as it’s the catchiest album we’ve released so far, but I wanted to conclude the « Great Clockmaker » saga with an album in which there would be a lot of references to our debut, rooted in a more traditional Funeral Doom. But I kept in mind our progression motto we always had, so the album stands out from the mass of this kind of music and from MONOLITHE’s discography too. I’m quite proud of what we did of this band during the first part of our career, really. We managed to forge our own style in a musical genre which has a well deserved reputation of endless stagnation. I think one can recognize MONOLITHE’s music within two seconds while, on the other hand, all of our records are different from each others. And I’m especially happy that we had the opportunity to re-release our back catalogue with a better artwork and all, so the whole discography is coherent. It gives the feeling of a great work that came to its conclusion, which is something very encouraging. This chapter is done and accomplished. Now let’s start a new part of our artistic life.

2- M IV seemed to mark the end of a cycle for the band. One can imagine that this is also the beginning of a new era. How will MONOLITHE evolve from now one? Can we still expect those massive one-track albums or will you consider having a more conventional approach for you forthcoming compositions?

One of the main evolution in our forthcoming music is the discontinuation of the one-track albums serie. I think it’s time to move on, so we can avoid redundancy and gimmick. The listener should be surprised and challenged, especially in those times when everything is smoothed to make it easy to ingest for the consumer. As a composer, I’m the first one who should be surprised by my own creation. And for that to happen, I need to get out of my comfort zone. With time and experience, comes a moment when composing is as easy as breathing and it’s usually not a good sign. Creating must be hard and painful. You have to get yourself into trouble, you have to explore new territories, and get that beginner’s anxiety feeling back, the feeling you have when you don’t know wether what you’re doing makes sense or not. If you actually start to follow a recipe you know by heart, you’re simply done as an artist. You become a craftsman. There are too many artists with whom you think, after a few years of activity, that they just release new material without real motivation, real input. They provide their craft, they repeat what they know. And their new releases are actually really just another song, another album, same old stuff, done again and again. Routine has taken over creativity. The new songs we composed for the next two albums are still long , but those tracks don’t cross the 15 minutes threshold. All of them are genuine journeys. I think one can still find that « Monolithe touch » in them, but it has clearly evolved. It is still Doom Metal though. It’s heavy and dark but the musical spectrum has broaden. It’s not as genre-related as it used to be. There are less tempo restrictions for example. My love for the 70’s classic rock is more obvious, especially through long guitar solos. Structures are sometimes more simple, catchier. On the contrary, some others are more progressive than ever, they feel like being trapped in a maze of riffs. There are also 100% instrumental songs. Overall, the new albums are rich and varied, they seem to me like they were initiatory journeys or roller coasters, with a lot of ups and downs. There is no story in the lyrics anymore, although they belong to the « Great Clockmaker » universe. The main theme is unicity, studied under different prisms such as entropy, loneliness or its exact opposite, etc. I always wanted to release albums like those, and I think I succeeded. Those records have to be considered like the two faces of the same double album, which is what they truly are. Oh, and they are called EPSILON AURIGAE and ZETA RETICULI.

3- The band line-up has changed lately. Can we hope to catch MONOLITHE performing on stage?

Well, we will play a few shows in 2016, but not more than 7 or 8 concerts overall in Europe. We won’t become a touring band. There will be at least 2 shows in France. If we like to do this, we’ll perhaps play some more in 2017. But playing live will remain something we’ll do once in a while only. The reason we changed our mind on this (as we always refused to play live before) is because we had more and more interesting and insisting demands. Some of us in the band really wanted to cross the threshold so to say, so we finally decided to do it. I was personally not really up for it in the first place, but then I thought it would be an interesting experience and a good way to develop the band even more. The focus will be on festivals and big events, but our first live show ever will take place in Nantes in March 2016. We’ll headline the Venom Festival.

4- MONOLITHE is a very demanding project, so how would you help a new listener to understand you work and your long musical pieces to be able to fully enjoy the journey?

Perhaps MONOLITHE albums should be listened just like if they where movies. What is a movie? A story told over a period of time, organized with logic, footage and sound, right? That’s how our albums are done, minus the moving pictures. Every MONOLITHE album is a chapter of a coherent work which demands attention and time to be ingested. In the 70’s, many bands such as Pink Floyed, Genesis, Yes and plenty of others shaped their records as indivisible entities ; The tracks where linked together, without silence in between, so they became a global artistic work which meaning was more important than the addition of their elements. That’s the same spirit one can find in MONOLITHE’s music. But we went ever further, by suppressing the separating tracks. So, beyond the entertainment provided by the music, our goal has always been to provide a full piece of art, which can only be fully appreciated when listened to its entirety. That’s a journey. And just like any journey, the trip, the crossing, the immersion, the diving, the experience, however you call it, is as important or even more important than the destination. Listening must be lived like an adventure.

5- Music being what is gathering us all here, I’d like to ask you to share your last musical discoveries.

I didn’t listened to much new records lately… I have returned into a temporal loop located between january 1st, 1970 and december 31th, 1979. To me, it’s the best decade for music. Or at least some of the music I like. I discovered The Alan Parsons Project… I listened the first two albums a lot. My wife, who doesn’t know much about music, wants to learn, so I try to introduce her smoothly to good things, starting with easy-access artists. Which makes me go back to the music of Pink Floyd, King’s X, Pearl Jam, The Doors, 80’s Genesis or good quality pop artist of the 80’s (A-Ha, Robert Palmer, that kind of stuff). It’s far from my own musical world but I think it’s important to listen to something else than what you do. It’s good to have a wide musical culture, especially when you’re a composer. I like well-thought music, whatever the form it takes. As for my need of darkness, I’ve been listening a lot to a few Metal masterpieces lately, such as The Purging by Terra Tenebrosa, Thy Catafalque’s Roka Hasa Radio and Threshold’s last album For the Journey. The last Moonspell and Leprous albums are good.