Label: Touch

一部楽曲にChris Watsonがフィールドレコーディングを提供!!エクスペリメンタル系のドラマー/パーカッショニストとして活動するSteven Hess、Opal TapesやDenovali Recordsからソロ音源を出版しているMichael Vallera、イリノイ州シカゴを拠点としている2人の音楽家によるベテラン・サウンドアートプロジェクトCleared。英Touchから3枚目のアルバムとなる2024年9月の出版作[Hexa]を入荷。チャイムのサウンドが循環するドローン、また静的なパルスを軸とした電子音響など絶妙なアンビエンスが全体が支配、中でも重鎮Chris Watson提供の駅のサウンドスケープを使った抽象空間録音[53S]の完成度が凄い。大判DVDパッケージ仕様。



Limited Edition Compact Disc in large format DVD package with photography & design by Jon Wozencroft

Cleared, the duo of Steven Hess and Michael Vallera has re-emerged with Hexa, their sixth release and third for Touch. Steven Hess recorded sessions in the group's practice space, handing them over to Vallera, who in turn added his home recordings, mixing and manipulating them. The final product provides only the barest of hints to any instrumental points of origin, such is the extent of their intermixture.

Hexa brings the listener interiority and depth, beginning with the slow build of the title track, where chiming details prompt a cycling drone. The "Magnetic Bloom" pulsations give way to granulated smears, while the well-named "Time in Return" plays with repetition and layering. The density in the tracks relents with "53S," a recording from a train station contributed by the field recordist Chris Watson. The spatial sensations brought by the clanking and creaking offer a respite of sorts before the accretion of processed magnetics resume on the aptly entitled "Sunsickness." Clouds of static overwhelm the initial melodies of "Ash." Pulses, bursts, and points of electronics breach the layered blankets and sheets of sound, as with the concluding track, "Oval Waters."

If you need to identify a genre locale, put Hexa on the side of the street where current electronic music lives. However you categorize the album, it is an absorbing listen front-to-back. Each track emerges with layers peeling and/or accreting and new details revealing themselves. [Bruce Adams, 2024]