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Released January 30 2009 on Tapete Records in Europe. lloydcole.com is the exclusive importer of this collection for sale in North America. It is not for sale in N. American record stores.

‘Cleaning Out The Ashtrays’ is a four CD volume, 59 song collection of b-sides, album outtakes, alternate mixes and pretty much every studio recording from 1989 until 2006 which was intended for commercial release, but which did not end up on an album. Demos are not included unless they were actually b-sides.

The four volumes are -

One Red Wine Glass (1989-1991)
Re-Make/Re-Model (1992-1993)
Dangerous Music (1994-1995)
Difficult Pieces (1996-2006)

Along with the four CDs, the box set comes with a chunky booklet which, along with exhaustive credits, includes four essays wriiten by LC, which may serve to somewhat demystify these recordings. Hopefully not completely.

Full tracklisting and audio samples are on the Cleaning out the ashtrays pages*.

What the critics have had to say -

“Lloyd Cole is one of the finest, and mightily talented, singer-songwriters of the past 25 years. 10/10” Americana Music Review UK

“there are swathes of great music tucked away on this 59-tracker, some inclusions as good as anything on his debut masterpiece Rattlesnakes” Record Collector

“two decades of thoughtful, literate pop . . . one of our finest songwriters” Independent on Sunday (UK)

“A fine introduction to an impressive canon of work” Q Magazine

“lovely stuff, and at it’s best . . . Cole surpasses his influences to create plangent, lyrical pop” Uncut