Cleared is the duo Steven Hess and Michael Vallera. They’re from Chicago, Hess is a percussionist and Vallera is a guitarist. They’ve been active since 2009, made records for the Immune label, but this is the first I heard from them. Of Endless Light (TOUCH TO:119) may have been made with guitars and percussion, but Cleared’s sound is very highly processed, and one can’t recognise a single familiar musical instrument in their delicate, wispy minimalism, suggesting that much of the “natural” timbre has been fed through many planes of micro-processing, multi-effects, and digital boards. Come to that, most of the results are new and strange, generating an almost unreal sensation in the ears and head.
Cleared seem to be proud of their compositional achievements, which they admit are predicated on “minimal” concepts, but for me it seems they go out of their way to avoid conventional methods of any sort, even foregoing things like a root note, thematic inventions, or repetition. What matters most to them is the conversation, the rapport between the duo, which they call a “language and structural system”; it requires a lot of careful attentive listening, and hard work, as they pay attention to the immersive, deep surroundings they’re trying to create.
Not all of this music connects with me, but Cleared often generate some interesting and unusual textures with their interactions, and it’s clear they’re not just droning on autopilot. From May 2023.