As the band's legal battle with EMI concerning their contract had freed them from the label, the band began searching for other record labels, and eventually, their manager Keith Aspden signed them to Verve Records, the jazz offshoot label of Polydor Records. Hollis was pleased that they signed Talk Talk because the Mothers of Invention were once on Verve. The band set to recording their new album soon after the contract was signed. Again hiring an array of guest musicians, producer/multi-instrumentalist Tim Friese-Greene and engineer Phill Brown, work began on "Laughing Stock" in 1990.