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Twelve Cubic Feet: Straight Out the Fridge 12” (Sealed Records) Sealed Records reissues this obscure and brilliant 10” from 1982, sizing it up to a 12” and including the same 16-page booklet that came with the original. Twelve Cubic Feet’s sound sits at the intersection of virtually all the interesting underground music movements happening in the early 80s UK. I hear elements of poppy anarcho punk like Zounds and Hagar the Womb, a lot of UKDIY (dig that total Television Personalities-style walking bass line on “Hello Howard”), touches of minimal synth (the to-die-for synth sound reminds me of Solid Space, with whom Twelve Cubic Feet shared a member), and the then-nascent indie-pop sound. On songs like the brilliant opener “Blob” and “Mary’s Got the Bug,” where the bass is up front and carrying the rhythm, Twelve Cubic Feet reminds me of Delta 5, but poppy tracks like “Evercare” and “Escaping Again” are more in the vein of Cleaners from Venus or the Times, rough-hewn takes on classic pop formulas. “The Almshouse,” on the other hand, employs the three R’s (repetition, repetition, repetition…), its circular, zoned-out sound evoking Can’s groovy meditations. There’s isn’t a dull moment on the record, and if (like so many of us), you have a taste for early 80s UK underground sounds from across the musical spectrum, you should get this right away.