take weeks before they could even get in contact with him. Despite having a label manager at the WEA Records office in London, the band sought the assistance of Geoff Travis of Rough Trade Records. He acted as a liaison between the band and Stein. Around this time, Booth had been romantically involved with the band's manager Martine McDonagh, who Stein disliked. He told the band to drop her, otherwise communication would stall. McDonagh made a plan that her business associates Elliot Rashman and Andy Dodd would manage the band while she took a behind-the-scenes role. Production Hugh Jones saw the band live, and talked to them after the show. He was critical of Stutter, stating that the band had lost their sound between the release of their Factory Records output and the album. James had a strained relationship with their label Sire Records; the situation almost made it to court, before the label gave in and provided the band money to record their next album. Strip-mine was recorded at Rockfield Studios with Jones as the producer for the most part; Steve Power and Steve Lovell produced "Are You Ready". Sessions concluded in March 1987; Jones spent five 20-hour days mixing the album, running on zero hours of sleep. The band weren't keen on his mixes, which unsuccessfully attempted to capture the sound of their early singles. Rashman and Dodd spent five months persuading Sire, who saw the band as a liability by this point, to give them more money to remix the album. Around the time Sire greenlight the proposal, two of their popular acts – the Housemartins and the Smiths – had broken up, and were anticipating James to be their next breakthrough artist. In early 1988, Power was drafted in to mix all of the tracks in a single day at Battery Studios in London, except for "Riders" and "Refrain", which were done by Jones. The resultant sound saw Whelan's drums being pushed to the front of the recordings' mix, with some songs seeing minor alterations, such as harmonies in "What For" being placed lower in the mix. The sequencing was changed as well, with "Refrain" and "Vulture" being moved towards the album's end. Composition Musically, the sound of Strip-mine has been described as folk-pop, with influence from the Smiths. All of the lyrics were written by Booth, while all of the tracks were written by James.