Twelve Cubic Feet - Straight Out The Fridge

Sealed dig a little deeper into anarcho punk history with this 12" edition of the one-and-only 10" by anarcho-adjacent DIY outfit, Twelve Cubic Feet. Forming from the ashes of punk second wavers Exhibit A and featuring members who'd also serve time in bands like Solid Space, Doof, Khmer Rouge++, 12CF were more anarcho by association than by virtue of any of their formalist qualities, performing at places like Central Iberico, issuing newsletters and even popping up at one point on Andy Martin's Scum Tapes. Their music tells a different story (or, if you prefer, broadens our understanding of anarcho), a proto-indiepop masterclass instilled with the buoyant melodicism of Girls At Our Best and the wiry energy of Glaxo Babies or Delta 5. Given those similarities, it's mystifying as to how they've remained so obscured, well placed in London in 1982 with their ramshackle jangle to take advantage of the likeminded activity Alan McGee was about to spearhead with the Living Room club. Alas, history didn't bend their way and, like so many other famous-when-they're-dead operations, they either fell a little between stations or lacked a well-judged break-out cover like, say, the Flying Lizards. Regardless, here we are again some 42 years later and the evidence is unequivocal: Twelve Cubic Feet coulda been contenders, seven sharp blasts of sweetly spirited independent fervour that reaffirm the Tardis-like nature of the endless 80s.