If anyone had any doubts about whether the word "phenomenon" accurately describes Eldar, they were dispelled Monday night at Max of Eastman Place. His technique was simply supernatural. In fact, at one point during a solo, he was playing so fast that I swear I heard a phantom melody that formed above the music his two hands were playing. I think that is possible; does anyone know?

Eldar's trio took off right out of the gate with an absolutely frenzied piece. It only slowed down when Eldar began to play an electric piano with his left hand and the acoustic piano with his right. He is, of course, entitled to experiment with whatever sounds he desires, but the electric piano seemed entirely superfluous; he was most effective when both hands were at the same instrument.

It was fascinating to watch those hands hover over the keyboard, with fingers dropping down like the keys of a sped-up typewriter, making surgical strikes on perfect combinations of notes at a dizzying pace.

His take on the Bobby Timmons' classic, "Moanin'" was introduced by way of a lesson in the evolution of jazz piano, moving from stride to honky-tonk to swing. The tune morphed into a leap-frogging rendition of Thelonious Monk's "Well You Needn't," which was followed by an original, the Chopinesque "I Remember When." Every time Eldar took off on a solo, it was breathtaking.

Todd Strait did a fine job keeping pace on the drums. And in any other band, bassist Harish Raghavan would have stood out with his impressive solos.

If Sweden's Midaircondo isn't the most unusual act at the festival, I will start believing in UFOs.

If you weren't there, picture this: two young women, one blond and the other brunette, both with their hair up the same exact way and both wearing loose-fitting silver outfits that looked like they would fit comfortably on androids.

Add a table full of laptop computers and a variety of other gizmos capable of creating and enhancing instant loops of sound that built, layer upon layer. Mix in a bass flute and tenor sax that the women occasionally picked up and played (quite well), and two voices used for spoken words, drone-like sounds and, finally, a Björk-like melody.

O brave new world that hath such people in it.

Strangely, it all worked. The sounds were trance-inducing and, in the context of the beautiful Lutheran church with stained glass windows, the performance took on a ritualistic aura.

The show was multimedia in more ways than one. Behind the women was a screen that occasionally came to life with incongruous images of fake swans, reindeer and, at one point, what seemed to be a deranged lawn ornament with an ax.

I don't know if this really is the music of the future, or a projection of what the women of Midaircondo imagine it will be, but it was far more engaging than any other electronic music I've ever heard.

Tuesday night I'll be checking out the all-star line-up in Trio Beyond. I'm also looking forward to hearing Five Corners Quintet. They may be the festival's best band you've never heard of. After listening to their album, I wouldn't miss them.