Atmos is a duo album by Czech bassist Miroslav Vitous and Norwegian saxophonist Jan Garbarek, recorded in Oslo in February 1992 and released by ECM in 1993. It holds seven compositions by Vitous and two pieces improvised together, and its slow, open music sounds like the work of one mind. "Jan Garbarek is my favorite sax player," Vitous has said, adding that each of them senses what the other is about to play.
The two had recorded together the year before, in the trio StAR with drummer Peter Erskine, made at the same Rainbow Studio in January 1991. Here they work without drums. Vitous plays double bass and Garbarek tenor and soprano saxophones, with Manfred Eicher producing and Jan Erik Kongshaug as engineer. Vitous has explained the closeness partly through origins: he grew up in Czechoslovakia, and Garbarek, whose father was Polish, understands his Slavic melodies. On a few tracks Vitous also adds electronic samples.
The pieces are short, mostly between two and seven minutes. In Goddess Vitous drums on the body of his bass, a percussive figure that sends Garbarek off on a lyrical line. The title track opens with a blend of harmonics, space and deep glissandi before its haunting theme appears, with the soprano weaving over the strings. The closing Hippukrene moves towards an almost walking bass. The two brief Time Out pieces break the calm, with sampled orchestral sounds in an expressionist vein.
Reviewing the album in December 1993, Jazz Journal praised Garbarek's "customary melodic and dynamic sensitivity" and Vitous's "remarkably strong, yet subtle, range of pizzicato melody". The critic counted it among the records of the year. The reviewer had heard much of this music played by the duo at that year's Bath Festival. For Tyran Grillo of ECM Reviews, writing in 2012, the record is a fascinating excursion in which only the Time Out episodes disturb its tender atmosphere.
This CD is the 2019 reissue in ECM's Touchstones series, which returns key albums of the catalogue to print in card sleeves with their original artwork, here by Barbara Wojirsch. Atmos was first released in 1993 as ECM 1475.
