That was the first time I'd ever touched a synthesizer, that album.Andy Summers' presence on the studio track is considerably less pronounced than on the vast majority of Police songs, and in fact, Sting wanted to record it without him entirely.

After considerable argument, they compromised by recording the part on both instruments, with a mix such that the synthesizer drowned out much of Summers's guitar.

The bass part is distinctively complex, with music producer and cognitive psychologist Daniel Levitin writing that it "takes this rhythmic play to such an extreme that it can be hard to tell where the downbeat even is.

Billboard called it "less mainstream yet more captivating" than "Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic" and said that "the repetitive rhythm creates a hypnotic effect.

The UK B-side of "Spirits in the Material World," "Low Life," was written by Sting around 1977 in the back of a German tour bus.

"[5] The American B-side, an instrumental titled "Flexible Strategies", was recorded in Canada while the band was working on Ghost in the Machine.

Word came that the record company wanted them to create a B-side, and the band jammed for ten minutes, resulting in this track.