Sequential essence is represented on a string.

In computer science, strings describe arrays of characters, bytes, or words, which come together to form some cohesive code. In quantum physics, a string is a one-dimensional object that is the constituent component of matter. In textiles, a string is generally what binds garments together. In music, the string is what vibrates and reverberates on an instrument to produce sound. In each case, the string implies unity, harmony, something that can be threaded, tightened, traced.

The guitarist Emmanuel Jacob Lacopo intuitively understands this.

I first encountered Lacopo in advance of the defence of his dissertation, entitled A Modular Artistic Practice for the Post-Classical Guitarist, submitted to the Department of Performance Studies at McGill University in 2024. In it, Lacopo tracks the technical developments that the guitar underwent — from acoustic to electric to electronically augmented — and champions its integral position in the historical sequence of traditional classical music. For Lacopo, the guitar is not merely an expression of potency, an instrument of desire.

“When it comes to tech, you can only add so much to something before you start taking things away,” he explains. “You have to find a line where you’re happy with what you’re gaining versus what you’re sacrificing.”

Lacopo and I have convened on an autumnal Thursday afternoon for coffee and to talk about his most recent recording, Dreamscapes & Our Modern Contradictions, an accomplished album of what he describes as “post-classical” chamber music.

A deliberately modular, genre-agnostic melange of approaches, there are orchestral and electroacoustic, compositional and improvisational, and instrumental and vocal elements that comprise the album. The result is not so much a collection of songs as a succession of musical experimentation that documents the artist’s journey through an unprecedented era in which everything is accessible and yet nothing is fully formulated.

There is no apt analogue for Lacopo’s singular sound, no facile read-if-you-like comparative analysis. His functional philosophy reflects a radical post-modern approach, one which strings together disparate and unexpected influences. But unlike the patchwork hodgepodge of millennial retromania, Lacopo operates with an immense respect for contextual lineage.

“The most important thing you can do as an artist,” Lacopo suggests, “is to take in everything you can and find what inspires you. What makes your voice isn’t an unexplainable thing. It’s a combination of all the things that you love. And no one else has that exact combination.”

Lacopo, 30, was born and raised in Montreal and encountered guitar-based rock music through an older brother. “When he wasn’t busy at night,” Lacopo recalls, “he would show me his guitar and his pedals and we would listen to a bunch of music together: The Beatles, Rage Against the Machine, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Radiohead. Then I started exploring music on my own: metal, progressive, and getting obsessed with that. Now I’m listening to classical, free jazz, rock, prog, punk, bossa nova. There are so many inspirations, and I understand why genre exists and why we classify by genre. But I think we’re getting to a point where genre is becoming more and more a limiting factor.”

Lacopo lived for a time in New Haven, Connecticut, and attained a prestigious master’s degree at Yale before returning to Montreal to pursue his doctorate in Music at McGill’s Schulich School. “I’ve always felt like I’ve had all these different identities living within myself,” Lacopo says, “all these really amazing moments and people who have shaped how I view music.”

That omnivorous perspective — plus financial support from McGill’s Eleanor Stubley Recording Prize — led Lacopo in 2023 to rearrange the works of the experimental classical composer Julius Eastman for heavily treated electric guitar on an album entitled Eastman, earning him a coveted spot on CBC’s “30 Under 30” list. With Eastman, Lacopo fully abandoned any notions of generic sensibility. “Everything now is an amalgamation of different parts of a whole,” he tells me. “I intend not to make something and wonder where it fits in anymore.”

With a Casanova-like stage presence, performance seems to come naturally to Lacopo. But overcoming the anxiety associated with playing in public is still a work in progress. “What you get comfortable with isn’t performing,” he says, “but you get more comfortable with your emotions. I now am completely aware of what’s going to happen to me internally. I know the morning of, I’m going to be really stressed. Overthinking everything. The closer we get to the show, the more physically anxious I’m going to be. But if you do it right, you enter this state where it’s just you and the music. Nothing else matters around you when you start playing.”

Lacopo takes more comfort in the recording process where he is able to control and sculpt various elements of sound. The studio is “a place where you can make mistakes,” he says, without the pressure of achieving perfection.

“The idea of perfection is why I almost quit the guitar,” he laments. “A lot of people in classical music aim to go into the studio to make a perfect recording and it takes them forever to do it. And you ask yourself, ‘is this even me performing anymore?’ I’ve seen recordings where every five seconds, there’s a cut of a new take. I’m more interested in hearing someone’s voice in a really sloppy performance.”

Imperfection for Lacopo is where beauty emerges — the asymmetrical timbre of a string slightly out of tune. “It’s so subjective,” he muses. “Someone will see a Basquiat and think that it’s the ugliest thing they’ve seen in the world. Then, some might say it’s the most beautiful thing in the world. There is beauty in something created void of technology.”

The technological history of the guitar in western music is nonlinear. But it does follow a thread. “I don’t think there’s another instrument that has as much cultural baggage,” Lacopo suggests. “I think I and a lot of people are trying to change that. It’s my favourite instrument. I play it for a reason.”◼︎

Dreamscapes & Our Modern Contradictions is released via The Watch That Ends the Night Records.

_{Cover image: Anthony Jamie Bucciacchio.}