Today, perhaps more than ever, when music is increasingly being commodified by the digital revolution, a jazz recording has to find a place in our lives. This perhaps accounts for the enduring appeal of Kind of Blue. It can function as wholly absorbing foreground music while equally acting as extremely hip background music (Jimmy Cobb, the drummer on that session, said in an interview I had with him he had lost count of the number of times people told him they played it when making love). The longevity of a consumer's relationship with a recording is not based on how fast a musician can play, how far out he or she can take their music, or demonstrate how ‘clever’ they consider themselves, but finding a way of fitting in to people's metropolitan lifestyles. Atmosphères is just such an album; in an age when so much music is consumed ‘on the go’ it can function as a soundtrack to your life, but it can also withstand the scrutiny of foregrounded music, as textures, sounds and melodies unfold in intriguing ways and unexpected directions. The music is primarily (but not always, for example, ‘Traces I’) framed around Hamasyan's piano which often mediates the flow and direction of the music. That some six pieces of this 2CD set are based on melodies of the Armenian priest and musicologist Komitas Vardapet is interesting to read about but by no means essential to reaching a relationship with this music; ultimately it's how music affects us emotionally that decides the nature and extent of how we engage with it. As it happens, these age old melodies have stood the test of time, otherwise they would not be with us today, and have the capacity to occupy our emotions, opening a window through which we can engage and celebrate this music.