Walking into Sphere on opening night of Phish’s April 2024 debut run, it was obvious that the band was preparing the audience’s nervous systems in advance for the otherworldly, immersive experience that was about to take place. One way they did this was by broadcasting a very unusual playlist on the speakers outside Sphere’s entrances, alongside the building’s outside perimeter and throughout the indoor atrium—a futuristic open concourse that spans all four levels, and the last place an audience member would traverse before entering the building’s sensory-saturated main performance area. While waiting in the security lines to get inside for those shows, the ambient music on the PA sounded pretty much exactly like what one could imagine it would sound like if Trey Anastasio wanted to pay tribute to Brian Eno’s Music For Airports by recording music for atriums. Turns out—that’s exactly what it was. After years of tone experiments and ambient explorations during soundchecks, Anastasio recorded a suite of atmospheric sound, characterized by droning loops, feedback sculptures and melodic strains that feel like they could be gateways to another dimension (if not sound baths in this one). Unlike the vast majority of Anastasio’s output to date, this music is decidedly not danceable—there are no tension and release mind-fucks, no climactic jams, no episodic rhapsodies. Rather, this feels like an amplified meditation; a natural pathway to an altered state of calm. Spanning over an hour and a half, and six numbered tracks all named “Atrium,” there will never be a better, more clever or more exciting use for this set of music than its debut, when it was used for its very specific, intended purpose during those four nights at Sphere. However, now released as an album, Atriums has the chance to take on a new life in the ambient realm—should you ever want a spacey guitar album that evokes trance-inducing elements of Phish’s late-night secret sets and simultaneously sounds like it could be waiting-room music for aliens.