Lage has long been heralded for his virtuosic ability as an acoustic guitarist. In fact, he was well known in musician circles as a guitar prodigy whose early genius was captured in a 1997 Oscar-nominated documentary short, Jules At Eight. As an adult, he's fulfilled the promise of his extraordinary youthful talent. The New Yorker's Alec Wilkinson declared, "He is in the highest category of improvising musicians, those who can enact thoughts and impulses as they receive them." Nate Chinen of The New York Times called Lage "one of jazz's breezier virtuosos, possessed of an unflappable technical facility and a seemingly boundless curiosity." After independently releasing a solo acoustic set of largely original material called World's Fair in 2014, that curiosity prompted Lage to reconsider the electric guitar-specifically a Fender Telecaster, "the most refined embodiment of the modern guitar," as he puts it.