Alaska Studios Berry Street Studios Live recordings at The Town & Country Club
Genre
Rock
Length
68:31
Label
Midnight Music Relativity Rhino
Producer
Robyn Hitchcock & Andy Metcalfe
Robyn Hitchcock and The Egyptians chronology
Gotta Let This Hen Out! (1985)
Element of Light (1986)
Globe of Frogs (1988)
Professional ratings
Review scores
Source
Rating
AllMusic
[1]
Chicago Tribune
[2]
The Rolling Stone Album Guide
[3]
Sounds
[4]
Element of Light is the fifth studio album by singer-songwriter Robyn Hitchcock and his second with his backing band, the Egyptians. It was released in 1986.
Most of the album was recorded at Alaska Studios and Berry Street, but two tracks, "The President" and "Lady Waters & The Hooded One", were live recordings made for the BBC, with overdubs recorded on BBC Mobile and at Alaska.
The album title derives from the song "Airscape", which has been cited several times by Hitchcock as a favourite among his own compositions,[5] and a live rendition was tagged on to later CD editions. "Airscape" concerns his "favourite beach", Compton Beach on the Isle of Wight,[6] which also provided a backdrop for the cover shots. He was inspired by learning about the erosion of the cliffs, and imagining the ghosts of people who had walked the cliffs centuries ago now suspended over the water.[7]
The song "The President" makes reference to Ronald Reagan's visit to Bitburg, where members of the Waffen-SS were buried.[8]
The song "Raymond Chandler Evening" is an homage to the world-weary novels of mystery writer Raymond Chandler.[9] The title was later used as the name for a sidequest in Cyberpunk 2077 also homaging the author.
Originally running to ten songs, the first CD edition included extra bonus tracks, all taken from singles, while later pressings have added a further six, including the comedic spoken number "The Can Opener".
The album was produced by Robyn and Andy Metcalfe, with input from long-time colleague Pat Collier.
^Erlewine, Stephen Thomas. "Element of Light – Robyn Hitchcock / Robyn Hitchcock & the Egyptians". AllMusic. Retrieved 8 January 2018.
^Kot, Greg (23 February 1992). "Rating The Robyn Hitchcock Solo And Group Releases". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved 8 January 2018.
^Considine, J. D. (2004). "Robyn Hitchcock". In Brackett, Nathan; Hoard, Christian (eds.). The New Rolling Stone Album Guide (4th ed.). Simon & Schuster. pp. 378–380. ISBN 0-7432-0169-8.
^Wilde, Jonh (4 October 1986). "Psycho Killer". Sounds. p. 28.
^Grandjean, Pat (1991). "A Day In The Life Of Robyn Hitchcock". Bucketfull Of Brains. No. 42. Retrieved 18 April 2020.
^Plumbley, Mike (10 August 1996). "On The Bus With Robyn Hitchcock Or The Number 42 To Compton..." Isle Of Wight Rock. Archived from the original on 1 September 2012.
^Demme, Jonathan (Director) (1998). Storefront Hitchcock (Motion picture). New York City: MGM Pictures. And ah, so I worked out that, that the cliffs where I pace, in another hundred years' time will disappear completely, and that my ghost will be fifty feet above the beach. There must be other ghosts out to sea, as the ghosts get further out to sea their costumes get older, so you've got you know, ghosts from the fifties about twenty feet out, and ghosts from World War II ghosts just beyond that, and you've got Great War ghosts with their goggles, and Edwardian ghosts with their mantles and Victorian ghosts with their cravats and canes, ah Jacobean ghosts with their... legs. And it just goes back on, whatever they had, those things to stop 'em smelling too bad. And about a mile out, there must be Cro-Magnon ghosts, clubbing each other to death and grinning. Now I guess there's going to be a few more of those inland as well. Anyway, this is a song from my ghost to those who walk underneath it.
^Robins, Wayne (7 February 1988), "Robyn Hitchcock: A View From Rock's Underground", Newsday, archived from the original on 7 February 2012
^"The P.I. Record Collection". The Thrilling Detective. Retrieved 14 May 2020.
ElementofLight is the fifth studio album by singer-songwriter Robyn Hitchcock and his second with his backing band, the Egyptians. It was released in...
chemical element is the atom. Chemical elements are identified by the number of protons in the nuclei of their atoms, known as the element's atomic number...
The finite element method (FEM) is a popular method for numerically solving differential equations arising in engineering and mathematical modeling. Typical...
The Fifth Element is a 1997 English-language French science fiction action film conceived and directed by Luc Besson, as well as co-written by Besson...
This Hen Out!, was released at the end of that year.) Their popularity grew with the 1986 album ElementofLight and they were subsequently signed to A&M...
Extended periodic table Element 119 (Uue, marked here) in period 8 (row 8) marks the start of theorisations. An extended periodic table theorizes about...
lower-pitched part "Bass", a song by Robyn Hitchcock from his 1986 album ElementofLight "Bass", audio file on Culture Vulture (EP) by Jesus Jones (2004) "Bass...
a 2008 compilation box set of the albums Fegmania! (March 1985), Gotta Let This Hen Out (October 1985) and ElementofLight (1986) by Robyn Hitchcock and...
intensity of the emitted light is proportional to the number of atoms of the element. The sample may be excited by various methods. The sample of a material...
Pictures. The company has operated Light House Cinema since January 2012, and the Pálas Cinema in Galway since 2018. Element also owns and operates a distribution...
Light, visible light, or visible radiation is electromagnetic radiation that can be perceived by the human eye. Visible light spans the visible spectrum...
When light crosses an optical element the resulting polarization of the emerging light is found by taking the product of the Jones matrix of the optical...
of their vehicles. Cupola (ISS module) Daylighting Windcatcher In Italian, cupola simply means "dome", and the ornamental top element, allowing light...
CREB-TF (CREB, cAMP response element-binding protein) is a cellular transcription factor. It binds to certain DNA sequences called cAMP response elements...
the order in which each was first defined as the pure element, as the exact date of discovery of most elements cannot be accurately determined. There are...
Magnesium is a chemical element; it has symbol Mg and atomic number 12. It is a shiny gray metal having a low density, low melting point and high chemical...
The Elementof Crime (Danish: Forbrydelsens Element) is a 1984 experimental neo-noir crime film co-written and directed by Lars von Trier. It is the first...
"element" in general: An element, we take it, is a body into which other bodies may be analysed, present in them potentially or in actuality (which of...
mismatch in proton/neutron ratio for such a lightelement. (Nevertheless, beryllium-10 has a half-life of 1.36 million years, which is too short to be...
Germanium is a chemical element; it has symbol Ge and atomic number 32. It is lustrous, hard-brittle, grayish-white and similar in appearance to silicon...
Bose–Einstein condensate of the element rubidium. The popular description oflight being "stopped" in these experiments refers only to light being stored in the...
Tungsten (also called wolfram) is a chemical element; it has symbol W and atomic number 74. Tungsten is a rare metal found naturally on Earth almost exclusively...
between signs of the same element. All the fire signs are by their nature hot and dry. However, the addition of the elemental qualities of the seasons results...
the causative agents of genetic traits called hybrid dysgenesis. The transposon is responsible for the P trait of the P element and it is found only in...