At only 31, Julian Lage has already proven one of the most daring and elastic guitarists in contemporary music, consistently moving on to new and unforeseen ideas, unafraid to see where his instrument might be willing to venture. Love Hurts is his 10th album in a decade as a leader or co-leader (he’s made them with Wilco’s Nels Cline, pianist Fred Hersch and guitarist Chris Eldridge) and one of his most audacious to date. Recorded in Chicago at Wilco’s studio, the self-produced release is Lage’s first with bassist Jorge Roeder and drummer Dave King of The Bad Plus, and consists primarily of covers, from Ornette Coleman to Roy Orbison. That’s a lot of range right there—toss in two by Keith Jarrett, a standard recorded by the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra in 1933 and The Everly Brothers-associated title track, and you can see without even pressing play that Lage is not one for staying within boundaries. On the title track, Lage favors an unperturbed approach but insists on a bold guitar tone anyway, while the first Jarrett number, “The Windup,” is unexpectedly frisky as it heads into deeper, more complex improvisational territory. “Trudgin’,” written by the late multi-instrumentalist Jimmy Giuffre and arranged, as are all 10 tracks, by Lage, borders on psychedelic blues, and the plodding opening track “In Heaven,” first heard in the film Eraserhead , is appropriately eerie and off-center. Roeder and King are simpatico playmates for Lage throughout, holding back nothing; hopefully, this trio will be back for more.