Remain in Light

The band and Eno recorded instrumental jams as repeating grooves, inspired by Fela Kuti's Afrodisiac, built up one section at a time and arranged by layering loops, a process Byrne likened to sampling. Harrison called it a new way to record for any band, and Frantz said they were flying by the seat of their pants. Byrne had writer's block, so he sang wordless scat over the tracks and wrote lyrics later from sources including John Miller Chernoff's book African Rhythm and African Sensibility, radio preachers and John Dean's Watergate testimony. Adrian Belew added guitar in a single day, with Jon Hassell on horns and Nona Hendryx on backing vocals. Half the record was mixed in New York and half in Burbank.

The working title Melody Attack was dropped as too flippant. Weymouth and Frantz made the cover with MIT's Architecture Machine Group, faces blotted with red blocks, and Tibor Kalman art directed. The sleeve credited the songs to Byrne and Eno rather than all five, as first agreed, and later editions corrected it. It reached 19 in the US and 21 in the UK, was album of the year in Sounds and Melody Maker, and placed 39 on Rolling Stone's 2020 list of the 500 greatest albums. Robert Christgau called it a visionary Afrofunk synthesis. A 2006 reissue added four outtakes.