^{photos by Jonathan Sharpe}

Hey, we were warned.

Ross Taylor, the local jazz magnet (pun very much intended) who brings high-profile avant-garde acts to the Capital City, said he expected "kookiness" from Jason Ajemian and his newest outfit, the High Life.

And kooky it was.

Ajemian's Chicago-via-New York City quintet is perhaps the most experimental — the most out-there, if you will — of the groups Taylor's brought to the Capital City. Indeed, listening to Jason Ajemian and the High Life is like trying to decipher a fever dream, one in which words become notes, notes become colors and metallic thwaps become words.

If it sounds difficult to follow, it's because it is: According to the New Music collective, the music High Life performs is created by Ajemian via teh architectural drawing software AutoCAD, using “visual blueprints that dictate the flow and motion of a musical set as well as open the performers up to visual influences. The performers will have pictographic schematics representing both the overall flow of the set as well as close-ups of individual sections.”

Indeed, flow is what the High Life is all about. Over the course of a continuous hour, the quintet masterfully moved all over the sonic map, from acid rock to free jazz to Akron/Family-esque indie rock to glacial, doomy slowcore, with each movement punctuated by a total collapse of form. Like a fever dream, bits and strands of one sonic shape were pulled to make the next, ever evolving each sly groove into something new and radical.

As much as Ajemian's espoused that High Life's music is as much based on his poetry as it is architecture, it was slightly disappointing that it was difficult to make out what Ajemian was crooning about. But maybe what he was saying wasn't the point. What is the point is that High Life's spontaenous movement ebbed and flowed like a comfortable conversation. Except with, you know, trumpets.

In short: It was gorgeous.