'Cleaning Out The Ashtrays' is a four 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)

Included are the original mixes of Don't Look Back and No Blue Skies, She's a Girl and I'm a Man before we edited it, Morning is Broken before the bacing vocals were added, Stephen Street's mixes for Love Story, and Langer and Winstanley's mixes of Fool You Are and That Boy.

Unreleased singles and b-sides include Missing, Rain On The Parade and my own minimalist mixes of Late Night, Early Town and My Alibi.

Contributions to tribute albums include Cohen's Chelsea Hotel #2, Kristofferson's For The Good Times and Bacharach and David's I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself.

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