The journey of Cleared, the Chicago collaboration between Michael Vallera (Luggage) and Steven Hess (Haptic, Locrian), has been one where its practitioners have moved and and morphed the project into different shapes and sizes over the years.
Since their inception in 2011, Vallera and Hess have seemingly worked in threes. The more rhythmic-based, ambient trilogy (Cleared – 2011; Breaking Day – 2012; and Drown – 2014), to droning long-form sound collages (Serpens – 2017; The Key – 2020; and Of Endless Night – 2022), which led the duo a through new portal on 2024’s Hexa.
It was this chapter where the duo produced maximum results through minimalism. An exchange of creative objectives that has seen Vallera and Hess marry up improvisations and studio recordings to great effect.
In the lead up to the release of Hexa’s follow-up, Lustres, the duo spoke of the “use of diagrammatic visual scores”. It’s telling. Their layered textures and tones, forming vivid imagery through sound. It’s a place where shades of greys and blacks darken significantly behind the backdrop of architectural designs.
Like a photographer huddled in the corner of a dark room, Cleared adopt the same procedural approach in their own artform. Through nascent discipline, each moment is feverishly considered, with nothing ever forced. And on Lustres, the duo construct the kind of radiant tableau that is ahead of its time.
Cleared - LustresVallera and Hess are absorbed by sound. From how it’s constructed to how it’s presented, they are simply fascinated by it. There are fragments of the same approach Vallera took alongside Lee Ranaldo on last year’s Early New York Silver. This time alongside Hess, he brings these ideas into sharper focus.
Beginning with the opening eponymous track. A mirage of sound with a crackling, dark pulse, it’s like a search for a lost transmissions in the post-apocalypse. It’s here where Vallera and Hess begin to build foundations for the future.
Starting with Shore. With glider-like qualities and sub-bass minimalism, it’s where ambient music and sound design unite. And continuing to look ahead, Vallera and Hess stretch their ideas to find ever more new ground. The fragmented moodscapes of Aubade, an echo of early Labradford where the duo stealthily move between orbit and the vortex.
On closing piece, Far, Vallera and Hess create a nexus between both. A chilling tunnel of sound that exposes a nervous energy underneath the mix of these recordings. An eeriness that underlines a world on the verge of ruins, and as we edge closer to that point, on Lustres, Vallera and Hess capture a prescience. An earthy mediation of tone and texture that grows darker the further one travels into their sound world.
Lustres is out Friday via Room40. Purchase from Bandcamp.
