Wellspring (Independent)

Talk about being an overachiever. Not only is Jay Hosking the proud holder of a PhD in neuroscience (currently doing postdoctoral work at Harvard) and a published novelist (the Globe and Mail called Three Years With the Rat an “ambitiously constructed…fantasy of interdimensional proportions”), he’s also a singer-songwriter of undeniable talent.

Seriously, man. Just pick one thing and be good at that. When you’re good at fucking everything, people start to resent you. Just kidding, sorta.

Wellspring is a six-song release with a sonic palette that extends from the subtly shifting indietronica of the opening track, “Who Am I?”, to the more straightforward folk pop of the closing “Landsmen”. Throughout what his Bandcamp page describes as “this sad-sack vocal EP”, Hosking—who has a pleasingly earnest singing style and an ear for yearning melody—ruminates on frozen lakes (“Waves”) and regretful loneliness (“Book”), sounding deeply uncertain and more than a tad melancholy, which might make you feel a bit better about a guy who can probably do, well, everything better than mere mortals like us can.