Four-Calendar Café was the first of two Cocteau Twins albums previously released via Capitol Records in the U.S. and celebrates its 30th anniversary in 2023. It’s yet to be formally released on vinyl outside Europe. That all changes in January 2024 when 4AD will reissue Four-Calendar Café and Milk & Kisses in the United States.

Like most Cocteau Twins works before it, Four-Calendar Café was recorded and produced by the band, this time at their September Sound studio on the banks of the Thames in West London. A beautiful yet bittersweet record featuring the singles “Bluebeard,” “Evangeline” and “Summerhead,” the band manifest maturity and fragility in equal measure, and while Liz’s lyrics remain cryptic, they’re more intelligible here. Complete with a memorable design of inanimate objects by the I Spy children’s book creator Walter Wick, Four-Calendar Café still stands tall going into its fourth decade.

For the Four-Calendar Café and Milk & Kisses reissues, Robin Guthrie returned to his original studio mixes and has delivered stunning, brand-new 24-bit masters of both titles.