Intervals: Appreciating Nostalgia

The realms of instrumental music have provided us with some of the worlds greatest innovators, fearlessly splicing styles and genres together like mad scientists in search of pushing creative boundaries further than ever before. Aaron Marshall has proven himself to be one of metal’s true visionaries through his INTERVALS project, conjuring up a sea of vibrant, technical and thought provoking compositions that only become more impressive as his musical journey progresses. It has been three years since The Way Forward and this month he is poised to drop what is potentially his boldest effort yet.

“I think people that are acquainted with what I do can expect a well rounded, well balanced body of work that features various aspects and traits of Intervals across the lineage of the entities existence,” explains Aaron. “Some aggressive, more angular, rhythmic, riff driven pieces and moments whilst still melodically expanding on everything I’ve been exploring over the last few records. I’m really proud of Circadian and I’m really excited to share it with everyone. I’m really happy with how it came together, writing a record during a global pandemic with half of our livelihood like touring being taken away from us was definitely a very strange time to be composing and getting gearing up to release with uncertainty.”

Aaron has always refused to be complacent with his song writing, continuing to look forward (and sometimes backwards) for inspiration to add to his ever expansive repertoire. “I believe that I’ve progressed through the records by channelling my inspiration through years of touring and there’s a lot of experience and memories that come from the space between those records. I just try to channel what I’m excited about musically and focus on refining this down and expanding on everything that I’ve created up to this point. It’s like a collage of influences. Funnily enough the further we go forward the more I tend to actually reach further back for inspiration and channelling a lot of nostalgia which I did on The Way Forward but I think that was leaning more in the direction of a colourful prog record and this is still evident in Circadian but I believe it to be a little more focused in its approach.”

Structure can be beneficial to ensure the completion of a task but it can also but a hindrance if not used effectively. Aaron focuses more on letting his ideas fly freely and allowing a project to take its own shape before he worries too much about the pressure of approaching the final hurdle. “I don’t like deadlines although they are necessary so I find that at least for the beginning of the process I need to make sure my schedule is clear and find that space and feel comfortable with experimenting and painstakingly throwing away ideas trying to find a sound. Maybe once I’m three or four songs into writing and I feel a little bit more comfortable then perhaps a deadline is welcome to kind of light a fire under my ass and get me moving in the right direction. That kind of zen mind frame is definitely achievable but I’m lucky if I can find it. I’ll have like a week or two weeks stint where I’m really in the zone and then I’ll have equally just as much time spent outside of that headspace questioning my entire existence.”

As the INTERVALS catalogue has evolved, Aaron has become more experimental with underlying conceptual themes to coincide with his musical offerings. This was most evident with The Way Forward where he endeavoured to create a narrative and this has been an approach he has continued to adopt going forward. “The recipe for a release to me has always been compose the music and just let what I’m hearing and feeling naturally evolve into a pile of songs and then I just need to sit and decipher what sort of congruent factor is between those songs. Circadian was written and recorded in about a six month window so subconsciously there are little motifs and themes which are baked into each song. I did actually have a story that I wanted to tell with an overarching concept, a sort of an umbrella if you will that I wanted all the music to stand under.”

“I knew what it is that I was trying to say or ideas or some imagery I was trying to convey so I still essentially did the same thing on the music shape itself and then I did my best to like apply that concept. I think that it might be one of the more focused releases. The Shape Of Colour was extremely abstract. What I had arrived at was not being able to actually put all these those songs in a basket and say ‘okay, I think this is what it means’. It was an opportunity for me to just create something abstract and interpretive. With The Way Forward there was definitely more of a congruent theme with using 3D imagery on the cover and using the hero’s journey to depict the story that I was trying to tell and using song titles and various emblems and icons throughout to weave that narrative. I do take pride in sharing that narrative but I also love when fans and friends come back and derive their own meaning from it. I love that level of interpretation because I also end up finding different angles to view things from. Even though there are no lyrics there’s nothing to tell you how to feel apart from music. We can all take our own messages or stories away from each piece and I love that.”

Circadian is out now via self-release.

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