McLarnan is the post-rock ambient project of Aaron McLarnan, slow-burning, grief-tinged, and deeply human. Fusing atmospheric guitars, ghostly textures, and field recordings, each track feels like a memory on the edge of vanishing.
I caught up with McLarnan to talk about their early musical influences, how they started composing their own songs and the making of the new album “Radiance After Ruin”.
CMM-What was the first music that really made an impact on you as a kid and what artist or band did you enjoy the most?
McLarnan-At a young age I discovered my love for music while gravitating towards what my parents listened to, early childhood favorites being Tom Petty, U2, The Beatles.
Eventually I would go on to discover bands on my own. Nirvana was the first band I loved. There was something so unfiltered and raw in the way Kurt Cobain expressed his pain, like it gave permission to feel everything all at once. That cracked something open in me early on. Musically, their energy led me to love a lot of punk bands and eventually some of the underground indie bands of the time like Pixies, The Replacements, and Dinosaur Jr. bands that taught me that imperfection can be beautiful.
Later, discovering post-rock bands like Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Explosions in the Sky, Sigur Rós, and Mogwai completely shifted my understanding of what music could be. The idea that you didn’t need lyrics to tell a story, that you could communicate just as much through atmosphere, tension, space. That’s stayed with me ever since. It made music feel infinite. Since then I’ve also been deeply inspired by composers, producers, and other instrumental artists who use sound as a kind of language in itself. People from anywhere like ambient artists and producers like Brian Eno to Trent Reznor..from the compositions of Jeremy Soule to the beats of El-P, there are just so many artists that deeply inspire me to paint with sound, build worlds, create textures, and let emotion live in the space between the notes.
CMM-When did you start playing music and writing songs?
McLarnan-I started writing little songs and poems in a notebook when I was around 15. I didn’t have gear, I didn’t have a plan, I just had feelings I didn’t know what to do with. So I began giving myself a place to put it. Eventually I learned guitar (I use the term learn lightly, it’s all smoke and mirrors).. I’ve spent a lot of time messing around with field recordings, sampling, looping, and over time it grew into this strange, deeply personal thing I do now. I’ve been at it ever since. It’s not even a choice anymore, it’s how I process the world. It sustains me.
CMM-You recently released an album called Radiance After Ruin. What was the writing and recording process like? What gear and instruments did you use during the sessions?
McLarnan-This album came from a pretty heavy place, emotionally and spiritually. It’s about the echoes that remain after something falls apart, the things that still shine, even in the wreckage. The process was messy, intuitive, and kind of beautiful in its own way. Radiance After Ruin came together in fragments, late nights, moments of clarity, long stretches of silence. I didn’t approach it with a blueprint, just a feeling I needed to chase down.
I used an old black DeArmond electric guitar that’s covered in worn-out stickers. It looks and honestly sounds like shit, but that’s part of why I love it. Like it’s been through things. Most of the drum loops were recorded using an Alesis Nitro kit, often warped or chopped up afterward. There’s also a lot of texture in the form of samples, field recordings, and ambient noise, stuff recorded from the world around me or pulled from forgotten corners of hard drives.
Synthesizers and effects played a huge role too. I leaned into delays, reverbs, pitch warping, distortion, really anything that could blur the line between sound and memory. There’s a lot of smoke and mirrors in this record. It’s less about clean fidelity and more about capturing a haunted, cinematic mood.
CMM-If you could do a score for any film director, who would it be and what would the film be about?
McLarnan-David Lynch, without a doubt. I love how he leans into atmosphere and emotion over explanation. The film would probably be a quiet, surreal story about memory and loss, set in some small decaying Midwestern town that’s both real and dreamlike. I’d want to build a score that feels like you’re half-awake, walking through fog, haunted by a memory you can’t quite place.
CMM-Anything coming up? New recordings or live Shows?
McLarnan-I have no live shows currently planned, whether or not I will do that with McLarnan songs remains to be decided. I do have a lot of new merch in the works that will be available at McLarnan.net and I am looking into physical releases of my albums as well. As far as new recordings? Absolutely, so many more.. there will always be something new coming, this has become part of who I am and I prefer it that way. Thank you for taking the time to listen.
