Calcite by Cruel Diagonals

released October 25, 2024

Written, produced, engineered, and performed by Cruel Diagonals.
Mix, master and additional production by Joshua Eustis.
Additional production by Liyv on "Scintillation."
Cover photography by Mike Lopez.

Special thanks to Jason Adams, Hanna Benn, Cassandra Croft, Aaron December, Maryam Erwin, Joshua Eustis, Liyv, Mike Lopez, Andrew Neerman, Kyle Roberts, Lara Sarkissian and Kirsten Thom.

"Cruel Diagonals (L.A.’s Megan Mitchell) is quickly becoming one of our favorite artists... Fractured Whole, recorded only with the sound of her voice, was one of our top albums of 2023. This year Cruel Diagonals returns with Calcite, a confident EP that is both science fiction story and cautionary tale, spanning the entire history of life on earth in only fifteen minutes... Mitchell’s music is sombre and elegiac, suggesting that species burn bright and disappear, and that any sense of superiority stems from a limited perspective."
– Richard Allen, A Closer Listen

Bio:
Since 2016, Los Angeles-based multimedia artist, Cruel Diagonals (aka Megan Mitchell), has been creating critically acclaimed experimental electronic music and intriguing visuals. Though classically trained as a vocalist and well-versed in jazz standards as a youth, Cruel Diagonals applies her brilliant voice to compositions and improvisations that are the antithesis of staid tradition or arid academic exercises. Rather, she optimizes her minimal gear setup with an instinctual adventurousness and an acute sense of the most chilling and moving atmospheres and timbres, favoring fluidity of tones over the grid-like modes of much electronic music. Cruel Diagonals augments these elements with exquisite vocalizations, informed by ancient folk musical traditions, as well as contemporary classical ones, thereby forging a unique sonic palette. 

Cruel Diagonals has recorded for respected labels Drawing Room, Beacon Sound, Longform Editions, and Doom Trip while taking her sound into deeper strata of textural complexity and vocal dexterity. Marked by a grave ethereality, releases such as Disambiguation (2018), Pulse Of Indignation (2018), Monolithic Nuance (2018), A Dormant Vigor (2021), and Fractured Whole (2023) feature beautiful singing amid discordant, sinister electronics. Making the ineffable deeply intimate, Cruel Diagonals is a surrealist sound sorcerer who is just beginning to journey through labyrinths of her own enigmatic design.

Bandcamp Daily on "Fractured Whole" (Album Of The Day):
"Throughout Fractured Whole, Mitchell sings vowels instead of lyrics, evoking feelings from the textures and timbres of her voice rather than stating them plainly. Those emotions feel their most concrete on the album’s peak, 'Reconciliation.' At the start of the track, Mitchell’s voice emerges as a poignant polyphony and gradually morphs into a groove of blown-out basses and otherworldly hums. It creates a feeling of catharsis, a moment of ecstatic release after all the turbulence, and shows how her electronic manipulations produce results that feel natural. In the process of transforming her voice, Mitchell uncovers emotions that are incredibly human—suffering and sadness, but also the resilience it takes to move on." – Vanessa Ague