With the new Poison Girls retrospective CD box set now released — a joint project by PM Press, Cooking Vinyl, Active Distribution and Free Dirt — co-executive producer Rich Cross shares with The Hippies Now Wear Black the story of how the project came together, explains how seven CDs worth of music was brought together and organised, and makes the case that ths is an essential acquisition not just for the dedicated Poison Girls’ enthusiastic, but the perfect entry point for anyone unfortunate enough not to know much or anything of the band’s musical and artistic talents.

Can you introduce and describe the CD box set?

Sure, I’d be happy to. Persons Unknown: The Complete Recorded History is a 7-CD celebration of the musical and lyrical prowess of the band Poison Girls.

It brings together all of the band’s studio and live albums, all the singles – A sides and B side, from both seven-inch and twelve inch releases – and a stack of live and unreleased demo material, spanning the full range of the band’s work from 1977 up to the 1995 reunion.

It is the most comprehensive collection ever put together of Poison Girls’ musical output.

The release also includes demo tracks by That Famous Subversa, the two-piece formed by Richard Famous and Vi Subversa which performed on the alternative cabaret circuit, and sometimes played support to Poison Girls.

What was the genesis of the CD box set?

As soon as we began work on the Poison Girls book This is a Message to Persons Unknown, discussions immediately turned to putting together a parallel musical retrospective of the band.

Our publishers PM Press were keen to go all-out to compile the most thorough and compelling compilation of the band’s work as possible – something that, by dint of its scope and ambition, would never be bettered.

The sounds of Poison Girls became the soundtrack to researching, writing and designing the book, and that meant that we were thinking about the CD release right through the process of putting the book together.

Once the book had been completed and sent off to the printers, we were then able to turn our full attention to the CD box set.

PM Press were keen to go all-out to compile the most thorough and compelling compilation of the band’s work as possible

How does it differ from the Statement box set released in 1995?

That’s a fair question — and one that we get asked a lot!

The four-CD Statement box set was released by Cooking Vinyl in 1995 to tie in with the band’s brief reunion, which involved live shows in London and Berlin. That set was selective, offering the content of several of the band’s studio albums — but leaving out live releases, several seven-inch and twelve-inch singles, and including next to nothing from the later period of the band’s work.

It was a fantastic package, and the first chance to have CD versions of much of the material. I was very pleased to receive a copy as a birthday present, the month it was released — more than thirty years ago now!

But while it’s much more than a sampler, it’s far less than a comprehensive account of the band’s work.

Is this effectively for Poison Girls ‘completists’ only?

Well, every Poison Girls’ ‘completist’ definitely needs to get a copy — but, no, this is much more than that.

This brings together everything that Poison Girls ever released on vinyl, in any format. And it adds to that with a collection of live and demo materials that have never been released before.

If you only have the Statement box set, or the Real Woman or the Poisonous or the Their Finest Moments compilations, you’re missing on a whole host of other stunning Poison Girls sounds — and that’s before even thinking about all of the unreleased and in-concert content.

If you want to immerse yourself in the full musical history of Poison Girls — tracing the story from 1977 to 1995 — this is the release that you need.

How did you decide what to include on the set and how to organise the material?

There were a couple of ‘givens’. We knew that we wanted to include everything the band released, and lots of material that they had not. We also knew that we needed to track the chronology of the band’s work.

But there were still lots of options about how best to group the material across the seven separate discs.

We went through more than nine different breakdowns of each of the discs until we got to a version that we knew worked.

Although there are some notable exceptions along the way, we group the first six CDs around album releases, and pull together live and demo releases on the seventh.

We went through more than nine different breakdowns of each of the discs until we got to a version that we knew worked.

Have members of the Poison Girls family been involved?

Very much so. Richard Famous returned to his personal tape archives to find live and demo materials, and arranged to have them mastered for the release. Pete Fender remastered the live recordings of Total Exposure and from the live tracks included on 7 Year Scratch. He also carried out a remaster of the original album mix of “Take The Toys (From The Boys)” and of track “Let It Go”.

Richard Famous also helped me to compile the lyrics for well over 100 Poison Girls songs – and correct many of my best-guess transcriptions for the unreleased songs! He also provided extremely helpful comments on my draft of the band history included in the CD booklet — which is different again from the manuscript of This is a Message to Persons Unknown.

It was a pleasure to be able to work with them both on bringing this whole project to fruition.

Who else has worked on the collection?

The release was executive produced by Ramsey Kanaan of PM Press and myself. The whole thing was designed by the talented Alec Dunn, while I authored the booklet. As well as the contributions of Famous and Fender, we had great support from Gemma Sansom, Tom Barwood and Cooking Vinyl’s Martin Goldschmidt. Sam Morley and Geoff Sadler, also of Cooking Vinyl, helped to put the whole package together. And the backing of Active Distribution and Free Dirt joined PM Press and Cooking Vinyl to make the release possible.

Can you say something about the material people will not have heard before?

In the life of Poison Girls, it’s the later period that’s less represented in the band’s releases — especially in the years after the release of Songs of Praise.

The live tracks on disc seven from 1987 prove beyond doubt that the band’s songwriting skills and musical ingenuity were both as potent as ever. Had Poison Girls recorded a final studio album and included songs like “The Money’s Not Real”, “Oh Boy” and “Hot Slots”, that would have been an extraordinary way to sign-off the band’s creative and political endeavours. But the live versions of those songs that we now have capture their power.

It’s also genuinely exciting to have the demo recordings of That Fabulous Subversa — the two-piece combo that Famous and Vi Subversa formed to perform Poison Girls songs and original material. Theirs was such a productive and inspiring creative partnership, which the songs “The Hook” and “Torture” make amply clear. The stripped back simplicity of how those songs are presented showcase the talents of both of them so well.

Did anything surprise you during the process of putting this collection together?

I’d say it’s more a case of having my existing senses confirmed and reinforced, rather than being surprised.

And that’s the appreciation of the diversity, the range and the depth of the different sounds, textures and tones that Poison Girls created over the course of the band’s lifetime — and of the poetry and potency of the lyrics that they crafted to accompany and complement their music.

Listening to the full Poison Girls anthology of Persons Unknown: The Complete Recorded History what strikes you is the breath of musical styles the band were capable of. The same band who wrote “Old Tart’s Song” is able write “Promenade Immortelle” or “Stonehenge” or “The Girls Over There”. Musically, those tracks are wildly different, but equally compelling.

And when it comes to lyrical style, Poison Girls were just as capable of powerful invective and polemic, passionate love songs, and of expressions of melancholy, regret and self-doubt.

How are the CDs and the set designed and presented?

The seven CDs are housed in a hinged box. Each disc is then housed in a fully illustrated card sleeve, complete with track listing and timings. The package is finished off with a 96-page full-colour, fully-illustrated booklet, that brings together the history of the band and the lyrics to all of the songs in the collection.

What are some of your personal highlights?

There are too many to list! I’ll single just out a couple of things. I love that fact that we settled on opening and closing the collection with different versions of “Persons Unknown” — opening with the single version from 1980, and closing with Vi Subversa’s last ever public performance of the song from 2015.

The live version of “Statement” from the band’s reunion gig in Berlin in 1995 is simply electrifying.

And I’m a huge fan of the rage and raw energy of the Total Exposure live set, all the more so in its remastered form.

Listening to the full Poison Girls anthology… what strikes you is the breath of musical styles the band were capable of 

One other track that I could mention is the live version of “Rockface” from the Communicate!!! live compilation album. There was no realistic prospect of tracking down the original taped recording (which may well have long since been consigned to landfill), so we had to rely on the vinyl. We could have cleaned up the crackles and pops from the vinyl transfer, but it felt important to me to have one track on the collection (and one is enough to make the point) that reveals its vinyl origins.

That’s a nod to the fact that — for those of us who were around and engaged at the time — we listened to Poison Girls, in the 1970s and 1980s, in all their analogue, vinyl glory, and with all of the audio imperfections our bargain-basement record players added to the mix (as the stylus left those indelible marks as the records were replayed).

But be assured that the rest of the collection offers the cleanest, clearest audio quality possible!

There are so, so many other tracks I could point to — and would, given half a chance!

What would you say to someone who has a sizable Poison Girls vinyl archive, and maybe the Statement CD box set that might encourage them to buy a copy of the new box set?

I’d encourage them to recognise that this is the definitive collection of the band’s work, put together with the support of Richard Famous and Pete Fender, which intends to leave nothing out.

It’s also been put together by a group of people who all wanted to produce the best collection of Poison Girls material possible, packaged and presented in the best way possible.

It is inevitably a ‘limited edition’ release, and there’s no guarantee that it will be re-pressed once this initial run is gone.

How about someone who’s newer to the musical majesty of Poison Girls?

What possible better way to start than with the consumate collection of the band’s output?

And while they are listening to the CD collection, they will need to pick up a copy of This is a Message to Persons Unknown as the perfect accompaniment — they can read while they listen. Poison Girls’ multi-tasking!

How is the Poison Girls CD box set being made available?

There are several elements to this answer!

The box set was first offered as a pledge reward in the (now concluded) Kickstarter campaign. The CDs were manufactured in Europe and first sent to Cooking Vinyl and PM Press warehouses in the UK a few weeks ago. It was agreed that Kickstarter pledgers in the UK and continental Europe, who’d pledged for a copy of the box set, would have copies sent out to them as soon as possible

The official release date, when the CD sets would go on general release, was confirmed as 27 March 2026. With the release date reached, the box sets are now available to buy from retailers in the UK and Europe.

Copies are now en route to the PM Press, and then to Free Dirt, in the US. Those Stateside who pledged for a copy of the CD box set during the Kickstarter campaign will then receive theirs, and the CDs will then be available from PM Press and Free Dirt in the USA.

What sort of reception are you hoping greets the release?

Me, personally? I hope that it reignites existing — and excites fresh — interest in the extraordinary canon of Poison Girls’ music. It’s a thrilling and an exhilirating collection of sounds, lit up by a persuasive lyrical manifesto, which speaks to the social, the collective and the personal with equal clarity.

There’s such passion, such anger and such joy in the music of Poison Girls. Go listen!

Poison Girls. 2026. Persons Unknown: The Complete Recorded History. PM Press / Cooking Vinyl / Active Distribution / Free Dirt. Available from: PM Press (UK), Cooking Vinyl, Active Distribution and Free Dirt.