High Atmosphere: Ballads and Banjo Tunes from Virginia and North Carolina is a 1975 compilation album released by Rounder Records.

The album is composed of Appalachian folk music recordings gathered by musicologist John Cohen in North Carolina and Virginia in 1965.

[2][3] Indiana University Press' The Journal of Folklore Research has asserted that a Lloyd Chandler song on the album, "A Conversation With Death" was an early form of "O Death"—a song which Ralph Stanley won a Grammy award for, featured on the O Brother, Where Art Thou soundtrack.

[4][5] Burgin Mathews of Allmusic says the album is "one of the finest compilations of old-time field recordings available" and "should be of equal interest to academics, musicians, and the merely curious".

[3] The alternative country group Uncle Tupelo's 1992 album March 16–20, 1992 includes three covers of songs from High Atmosphere.