Having first captured our attention with Monolithic Nuance (2018) for Longform Editions, Megan Mitchell’s Cruel Diagonals has continued to impress with each new work. With Fractured Whole, she set herself the task of producing an album using nothing but her voice as raw material. While she deserves recognition as a gifted vocalist, she deserves at least as much praise for her production work, alchemically transmuting her voice into a wide range of instruments and textures. In this episode, she discusses the production challenges posed by Fractured Whole, her background in musical theatre, her work with the feminist archive Many Many Women, and much more. (Joseph Sannicandro)
Episode 33: DIS/EMBODIED – with Cruel Diagonals
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Interview recorded between Montreal and Pasadena, May 2023
Produced and mixed in Montreal, January 2024
Megan Mitchell / Cruel Diagonals (Photo: Mike Lopez)
“These are not disembodied forms, I’m not just a sample pack to make your track sound better. There’s a body here, there’s something behind this.” Mitchell is explaining the decision to prominently feature her image on the cover of Fractured Whole, while problematizing the idea of #femalevocals. She points to the Rialavox Ladies plug-in suite, a “female vocal” sample library that went viral for all the wrong reasons. Rather than functioning as an anonymous “female” flourish, such disembodied vocals quickly fall into the uncanny valley. Owing to their embodiment, vocals are often gendered in a way that other instruments are not. While male artists can mask themselves (sometimes literally) and hide behind anonymous monikers and white label releases, there are different pressures on female-identified artists. Cruel Diagonals centers Mitchell’s persona, inseparable from her voice.
Released on Beacon Sound, Fractured Whole appeared on our Top Ten Experimental and Top 20 Albums of the Year for 2023. Richard Allen found that “whether [Mitchell’s] voice is processed or unadorned, it contains a spiritual, even ritualistic quality that matches the theme: fractured pieces, seeking to be made whole. Connecting to ancient rituals and sacred chant, she opens a window to the divine.” Opener “Penance” begins with Mitchell’s voice, lovely and clearly decipherable, but it is not long before the first turbulent elements emerge, portending a darkness that carries through the arc of the entire album. All the sounds on Fractured Whole were derived from Mitchell’s voice, but even the “lead” vocals become increasingly stretched, crunched, and transformed, a trajectory that helps carry the narrative. In his original review, Rich writes that “what the listener hears as distortion, Mitchell presents as power: a declarative statement of hard-earned confidence.”
These themes are explored via different means in the video for the single “Vestigial Mythology,”showcasing Mitchell as a singer and performer. The relationship between singing and performing was cemented for Mitchell when she portrayed Glinda the Good in a childhood performance of The Wiz (a role played by Lena Horne in the film version). Mitchell pursued vocal study more seriously, including training in opera and jazz, but by college her musical interests had changed. Moving to the Pacific Northwest for university and grad school, she held a variety of roles in the music industry, including at radio stations, live venues, and archival projects, a period of exposure and intense research. In these years she became increasingly influenced by industrial, minimal techno, and krautrock, influencing the form Cruel Diagonals would take.
Monolithic Nuance
She was particularly affected by the sound of Demdike Stare, Andy Stott and the Modern Love label, leading her to rediscover influential duos such as Porter Ricks and Techno Animal. Labels including Sandwell District and Blackest Ever Black were at that time cultivating new convergences between the techno, noise, and dark ambient scenes, opening up new possibilities for musicians and audiences alike. Dance-inspired rhythms are prominent in much of Cruel Diagonals’ early music, even if the results are more dark and atmospheric than dance-floor ready.
Based in LA since relatively early in the history of Cruel Diagonals, Mitchell nonetheless feels out of step with the city’s wellness industry and associated ambient culture, preferring to explore more unsettling sonic avenues. Mitchell grew up near a former naval base in Alameda, across the Bay from San Francisco, where she developed an adolescent interest in abandoned spaces. During her years in the Pacific Northwest, she visited abandoned industrial spaces, mostly in the Cascade mountains, including a concrete factory, a railroad tunnel, and a mine, activating these spaces, taking photos and making recordings. Early work as Cruel Diagonals, including Disambiguation (2018), work to represent the quality to those spaces in sound, while A Dormant Vigor (2021) field recordings and granular synthesis to the mix of modular synth and vocals.
Mitchell studied electronic music production, but vocals have always been prominent and often central to her music. This emphasis on vocals can lead to lazy comparisons with other female vocalists with whom her work has little else in common. There’s also a risk that her vocals may overshadow her creative work as a producer, what I refer to as the “Bjork problem” in our conversation, the idea that women tend to have their technical skills downplayed or questioned, especially when they are singers and performers. So in our conversation we delve a bit into Mitchell’s production style, how she’s adapted her compositions for live performances and touring with limited gear, including the Borderlands granular app, which can be heard on the “Vestigial Mythology” remix from her live release.
Besides her interest in dark techno, Mitchell cites figures as diverse as Anne Gillis, Laurie Spiegel, Eliane Radigue, and Pauline Oliveros. As a feminist, Mitchell made sure to recognize women’s contributions to electronic music, leading her to a five year tenure with Many Many Women, an index “for any group of individuals who have been marginalized and oppressed by the patriarchal norms of our society.” Named after a Petr Kotik composition, Many Many Women (1975-78), which itself is drawn from an essay by Gerturde Stein, Many Many Women was founded in the fall of 2015 by Seattle composer and curator Steve Peters, frustrated in particular by the lack of recognition given to non-male living composers. By the end of the year he’d handed the reins of the project over to Mitchell, who oversaw the index until December 2020, fusing her expertise in archiving with her interest in music.
Now that she’s successfully produced an album using only her voice, will we get a voiceless Cruel Diagonals album in the future? “I think that would be an interesting challenge,” she replies, “to see if I could still make something that was uniquely in my style, because it is so tied up in my voice. I mean, I think that could be an interesting prompt, so, maybe. … But I can sing! That grabs people.” So no commitment at this point, but we are confident that we’ll be interested to see wherever she goes next. Until then, Megan is happy to keep singing.
RIP Juan Mendez [Silent Servant], Simone Ling, and Luis Vazquez [Soft Moon]
Lynn Hershman Leeson, CyberRoberta (1996)
LINKS
Cruel Diagonals
Bandcamp
Many Many Women
Beacon Sound
Modern Love
TRACKLIST
ARTIST – “TITLE” (ALBUM, LABEL, YEAR)
Cruel Diagonals – “Penance” (Fractured Whole, Beacon Sound, 2023)
INTRO
Cruel Diagonals – “Monolithic Nuance” (Monolithic Nuance, Longform Editions, 2018)
Mika Vainio – “Se On Olemassa (It Is Existing)” (In The Land Of The Blind One-Eyed Is King, Touch, 2003)
Matthewdavid – “Phased Moon” (Mycelium Music, Leaving, 2023)
Cruel Diagonals – “Monolithic Nuance” (Monolithic Nuance, Longform Editions, 2018)
Cruel Diagonals – “Render Arcane” (Disambiguation, Drawing Room Records, 2018)
Cruel Diagonals & Jon Carr – “Fall Back Into Earth” (Fall Back Into Earth, 2022)
Asmus Tietchens – “Club of Rome” (The Emergency Cassette Vol. 2, Los Angeles Free Music Society, 1981)
Faust – “Why don’t you eat carrots?” (Faust, Polydor, 1971)
Can – “One More Night” (Ege Bamyasi, Liberty, 1972)
Demdike Stare – “Black Sun” (Voices of Dust, Modern Love, 2010)
Andy Stott – “Luxury Problems” (Luxury Problems, Modern Love, 2012)
Porter Ricks – “Biokinetics 2” (Biokinetics, Chain Reaction, 1996)
Anne Gillis – “A6” (Monetachek, Rangehen, 1985)
Techno Animal – “Bionic Beatbox (Tortoise version)” (Techno Animal Versus Reality, City Slang, 1998)
Cruel Diagonals – “Intuit Sensate [edit]” (Fractured Whole, Beacon Sound, 2023)
Pauline Oliveros, Stuart Dempster, Panaiotis – “Lear” (Deep Listening, New Albion, 1989)
Eliane Radigue – “L’Île re-sonante (2000)” (L’Île re-sonante, Shiiin, 2005)
Annea Lockwood – “For Ruth” (Tête-à-tête by Ruth Anderson & Annea Lockwood, Ergot, 2023)
Petr Kotik – S.E.M. Ensemble – Many Many Women – Part 13 (That being uncovered) (Many Many Women, Labor, 1981)
Cruel Diagonals – “Fluvial” (A Dormant Vigor, 2021)
Laurie Spiegel – “Three Sonic Spaces II” (Unseen Worlds, Scarlett/Infinity, 1991)
Lana Del Rabies – “Grace the Teacher (Cruel Diagonals remix)” (Becoming Everything: STREGA BEATA Remixed, 2024)
Cruel Diagonals – “Live in Los Angeles – March 2023 pt.1” (Live in Los Angeles, March 2023, Beacon Sound, 2023)
Cruel Diagonals – “Vestigial Mythology (remix)” (Live in Los Angeles, March 2023, Beacon Sound, 2023)
Cruel Diagonals – “Vestigial Mythology” (Fractured Whole, Beacon Sound, 2023)
Andy Stott – “Submission” (We Stay Together, Modern Love, 2011)
Andy Stott – “Promises” (It Should Be Us, Modern Love, 2019)
Luc Ferrari – “Music Promenade” (Music Promenade / Unheimlich Schön, Recollection GRM, 2019)
Cruel Diagonals – “Soporific Return” (Disambiguation, Drawing Room, 2018)
Cruel Diagonals – “Decimated Whole” (Fractured Whole, Beacon Sound, 2023)
Pauline Oliveros, Roscoe Mitchell, John Tilbury, Wadada Leo Smith – “Part III [Encore]” (Nessuno, I Dischi Di Angelica, 2016)
Demdike Stare – “We have already died” (Elemental, Modern Love, 2012)
Can – “Call Me” (Saw Delight, Mute/Spoon, 1977/1991)
Silent Servant – “Violencia” (Violencia, Sandwell District, 2008)
Realivox Ladies – Female Vocal Sample Library – “Realivox Ladies V2 Walkthrough” (2015)
Bjork – “It’s Not Up To You” (Vespertine, Polydor, 2001)
Pauline Oliveros – “Sound Patterns” (Extended Voices, Odyssey, 1967)
Maxwell – “This Woman’s Work” (Now, 2001)
Richard Maxwell – “Pastoral Symphony” (An Anthology of Noise & Electronic Music Volume 5, 2008)
Cruel Diagonals – “Live in Los Angeles – March 2023 pt.2”
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Sound Propositions is written, recorded, mixed, and produced by Joseph Sannicandro.
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