Nicole Miglis - Myopia
Nicole Miglis, the multi-instrumentalist and voice behind revered indie pop band Hundred Waters, has announced her debut solo album Myopia is set for release August 23rd on Sargent House and shared the song “Autograph,” an unrepentant electronic earworm that surges out of the gate with infectious syncopation amid pleas for presence and authenticity. The song is an apt demonstration of Miglis’s mesmerizing ability to synthesize experimental production, pop melodies and classical form into a musical language completely her own. Throughout Myopia, Miglis crystallizes interwoven states of obsession, love and loss alongside an eclectic array of sounds, both organic and digital, while expounding on the album’s theme of being unable to look past the immediate in favor of the bigger picture. “There’s the myopia of desire, love, obsession—the feeling of only being able to see that one person in everything, everywhere,” she explains. “There’s also personal myopia of not seeing your potential or your power, of not zooming out; limiting beliefs.”
From a very young age, Miglis was enamored with becoming a musician, beginning with her introduction to classical piano at just six years old. Entering her teens, she balanced her love for the DIY music scene alongside classical music competitions, leading her to study piano performance at the University of Florida, where she met her future collaborators in Hundred Waters. The band were an immediate critical sensation, yielding glowing praise from the likes of NPR, New York Times, Pitchfork, Rolling Stone, and more. In the wake of their last album Communicating, Miglis began to envision what her creativity could look like outside of the group. For Myopia, Miglis was determined to write, produce and perform all of the songs herself. “A big part of this album was to see what I could do on my own,” she explains. “Especially coming out of Hundred Waters, where I was starting to have a bit of an identity crisis.” Although many of the tracks came together while still with the band, she found renewed creative vigor following her global tour as lead singer for Grammy nominated electronic musician Bonobo in 2022-23.
Myopia evolved in bits and pieces. “Because I made a lot of the record with my portable setup while traveling, there are a lot of meaningful stories behind all of the sounds for me,” Miglis says of the writing process for the album. “A lot of it came from different periods of time, in a lot of different places.” Reinvention can be a slow process following calamity, but for Nicole Miglis it was more deliberate. Myopia is the culmination of a lifetime of artistic endeavors, threading moments throughout her entire career. It blends textures and genres alongside instruments and influences—from pianos and strings to harp acoustics and ethereal loops—bridging the gap between classical and modern with an album certain to intrigue fans of electronic, orchestral, and pop music alike.