In the year 2021, there is certainly no shortage of guitarists capable of cranking out technically showy, mind-bending works of art with their fretboards. There’s also no shortage of those who use the guitar as a tool for emotive storytelling, sometimes eschewing scholarly form to favour sounds that elicit natural, more distinctly human emotions. There are few guitarists, however, that can push both of those styles to their extremes, delivering intricate and interesting passages of fretwork that stimulate the mind just as powerfully as they stimulate the heart – balancing virtuosic technique with a love for the (oftentimes simple) art of musical whimsy.
Justin Bernasconi is one of those few guitarists. Bernasconi’s third album, , is a tour de force of songwriting wit caught up with Bernasconi to vibe on how marks a new peak for the singer-songwriter’s artistic evolution, how he plumbed the depths of trauma to find slivers of elegance, and all the wicked gear that went into encapsulating it.
