“When it gets hard is when it gets good... It’s when you learn about yourself and the world”

“I often go up into the mountains, to write and disconnect from the world,” says Moses Sumney, his cadence soft and measured, as he rides the train from Montreal to Toronto.

Solitude is a precious commodity for Sumney, and its delicate fruits are everywhere to be found on Lamentations—an all-too-brief but unified group of songs culled from his latest album. The EP’s title is carefully chosen, like most of the words Sumney uses, and its contents find him reckoning with loneliness, the limits of intimacy and entrapment within the self.

Sumney gained widespread attention for his 2014 EP Mid-City Island, recorded entirely on his own with a four-track. Listeners were mesmerized by his ethereal voice and lyrics, and a swell of expectation followed him as he toured with Beck, Karen O, ...