Cleared is the Chicago duo of Steven Hess and Michael Vallera. Cleared was formed in the latter part of 2009 as a project meant to focus on repetition and patience as central elements of composition. Hess and Vallera have previously worked in various contexts of improvisational, long form and experimental music. Cleared is an effort to take the knowledge both have gained from these arenas in order to build hypnotic patterns of sound and rhythm