Cleared: Hexa

Over the years, Steven Hess and Michael Vallera have explored different parts of the Chicago underground, but as Cleared, the duo always come together to find a frequency that few others operate on.

Having worked alongside Pan American’s Mark Nelson as Anjou and various other projects, not limited to Apiary, Boris Hauf Sextet, The Slow Bell Trio and, most recently, Locrian, Hess has been a key voice in the Chicago underground for many years now. So too Vallera, who has worked alongside Hess as Cleared for over 10 years, as well as being the exponent of some of the best guitar-based music to come out of Chicago in recent times – namely as leader of post-punk renegades, Luggage.

Cleared’s sixth long-player and third for Touch, Hexa, finds the duo opening new doors that lead to untrodden recesses. In Vallera’s case, it’s his second release in consecutive months, the first being Maar – his collaboration alongside Joseph Clayton Mills which birthed the LP, Airelocks – one of the finest experimental endeavours committed to tape this year.

Maar: Airelocks

And Hexa is every bit as thought-provoking. Constructed firstly with Hess’ recorded sessions in the group’s practice space, he then handed the work over to Vallera, who added his own recordings. The amalgamation forms a series of obscure collages that manipulate sound design into something that thaws out the coldness that it can sometimes offer.

While there’s a dark thread that runs through these recordings, the difference here is that Cleared temper it with a sense of hope. Take the eponymous opening track; sonics that are like a recurring cold echo from an abandoned warehouse floor. Magnet Bloom follows a similar trajectory, however there’s more space to manoeuvre; the composition unfurling like a spectre drifting from the same warehouse in search on new liminal space.

Meanwhile, Time In Return sees Hess and Vallera exploring minimalism to great effect, with a series of soft drones that sooth the deepest parts of the mind. The production, so pure and transparent that takes flight towards the outer regions.

It’s a contrast to 53S – an interlude of the blurred noise of a train station, captured by field recordist Chris Watson. Hess and Vallera adopt a maximalist approach to his findings, with a series of acerbic sonics which splits Hexa straight down the middle like an axe to firewood.

Visual Space: In Conversation with Luggage’s Michael Vallera

Then there’s aptly titled Sunsickness. Reaching for the underbelly of drone where Mark Nelson has inhabited for the last three decades, it’s here where Cleared reshape these brooding soundscapes with dark washes of sound that’s like thick smoke coursing through a tunnel. And while the title of the following track may suggest something similar, Ash is a pulsating rush at altitude. A piece that builds majestically with warm drones that reach a crescendo in the clouds. Again, it’s that hope on the back of despair that sees Cleared like never before.

In many ways, Oval Waters is the perfect closing track. As incongruous as its title suggests, with a series of warped dreamscapes, it sounds like it’s been reversed engineered. It’s this effect that is essentially the embodiment of sound exploration as we know it.

This is why Hexa is another important piece of work in the Cleared memorandum. Hess and Vallera explore the progression of technology and its relationship to industry. Many of these soundscapes, a response to the blue-collar DNA of the duo’s native Chicago, which sees the pair tackling locality from a different angle than most. Through contrasting tones and emotions, the pair conjure up the kind of juxtapositions that are indicative of everyday life. And it’s this that makes Hexa all the more relevant.   

Hexa is out via Touch. Purchase from Bandcamp.