We Were Here would be best enjoyed in that half-lucid state induced by prolonged staring out of a bus window. Unlike much ambient electronica, Myopic’s music is not quietly contemplative, and the construction of these songs doesn’t allow much space for the mind to wander in. It’s all the better taken in along with a steady flow of scenery.
Three of We Were Here’s seven tracks feature a muffled drum kit, each time breaking the moody electronic haze and demanding to be ascribed to some movement. It’s especially evident in “6of1”; perhaps it’s the fault of the numbness caused by the maddening key melody being repeated for nearly six minutes, but the drums seem disconnected somehow, as if they really belong with something bigger. Since the music is so very high-key, these attempts to bolster it with some darker values are patchy at best. The only time when the drums work well is during the final part of “Jura,” which is built up with enough violin and guitar to support itself.
Understandably, the most enjoyable tracks are the two percussion-less ones. The downcast Wurlitzer melody of “If You Say So” sounds oddly but not unpleasantly familiar, and the reverberating keys of “We Were Here” use repetitiveness to their advantage, resulting in an effect similar to church bells.
Listening to this EP is a monotonous experience, and once it passes out of being like idle thought, it’s not easily recalled. But perhaps it was meant to be that way. I wouldn’t be surprised, as this effect is reinforced by the first and last songs, both of which are a brief, tuneless fragment called “Puzzle Pieces.” I could have easily closed my eyes for 20 minutes and not known how much time had passed. Like the open gray sky of the album cover, We Were Here is just a temporary state of being.
In A Word: Open-ended
