organ, Variophon, drums, and unusually, a water heater and kettle, as well as techniques such as "sampling, looping, off-setting, and the odd backwards F/X." Differing, distant miking techniques were employed for these instruments, with mics being placed "six feet from acoustic instruments, and about twelve feet from amplifiers." With the album now completed, they used only "an old spring echo, an EMT echo plate, and a DDL" to mix the album. Music Laughing Stock consists of six tracks; Steve Sutherland said the album is "divided into six parts although it's really one long piece spanning an evolution of moods." Ian Cranna of Q said the album was "even more withdrawn and personal than before." Comparing the album to Spirit of Eden, Jess Harvell of Pitchfork says "the song structures are even stranger, built up from the tiniest musical gestures, clashing in mood from track to track, frequently more improvised-sounding than ever. The goal, assembling a coherent album from all this stuff, probably seemed quixotic to many of the contributors as it was being made." In a 1991 interview with Melody Maker, Mark Hollis said "the last thing I would ever want to do is intellectualise music because that's never been what it's about for me. Nothing has changed from the ethic of the last album and I would never want that to change because I can't see any way of improving upon that process. As before, silence is the most important thing you have, one note is better than two, spirit is everything, and technique, although it has a degree of importance, is always secondary." Hollis cited Can's Tago Mago, John Coltrane's "In a Sentimental Mood" – where "it sounds like the bloke's setting his kit up" – and Bob Dylan's New Morning as influences, "because there, if you're talking about sounds being honest, I don't think you can get much more honest than that. It just sounds like the band's in the front room with you." In a radio interview with Richard Skinner at the time of the album's release, Hollis commented that "I think silence is an extremely important thing. It isn't something that should be abused. And that's my biggest worry because of the whole way that communications have developed, that there is a tendency just to allow this background noise all the time rather than thinking about what is important. The silence is above everything, and