"Ellis speaks with a stutter - more specifically, a glottal block - a form of speech dysfluency that creates silent gaps in his speech that he calls "clearings," often without warning and sometimes for prolonged periods of time. For most of his life, these clearings became unintentional performances of improvisation."
"With The Clearing, composer, producer, multi-instrumentalist, and writer JJJJJerome Ellis establishes a new metaphor that frames speech dysfluency-stuttering in particular-as a space for possibility rather than a pathology."