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ST LP

by Smirk

/
  • Streaming + Download

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    Purchasable with gift card

      £5 GBP  or more

     

  • Full Digital Discography

    Get all 165 Drunken Sailor Records releases available on Bandcamp and save 60%.

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of Lost Inside My Mind In Another State of Mind. The Singles Collection LP, Vol. II LP, 2023 Sampler, Call of the Knife LP, First Sight 7", 2-4-1 LP, ST LP, Beside You LP, and 157 more. , and , .

    Purchasable with gift card

      £217.40 GBP or more (60% OFF)

     

  • Limited Edition 12" Black Vinyl
    Record/Vinyl + Digital Album

    Debut LP from Smirk, feat Nick Vicario from Public Eye

    Includes unlimited streaming of ST LP via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

    Sold Out

  • Limited 12" Red Vinyl (100 Only)
    Record/Vinyl + Digital Album

    Debut LP from Smirk, feat Nick Vicario from Public Eye

    Includes unlimited streaming of ST LP via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

    Sold Out

1.
2.
Violent Game 03:20
3.
Blind 01:39
4.
5.
Lude 2 00:37
6.
Mind Temp 03:15
7.
Do You? 01:53
8.
9.
New Way Out 01:32
10.
Lude 00:49
11.
Step 02:13
12.

about

A year characterised by a pandemic, lockdowns, political ineptitude and oh, so much staying the fuck at home is enough to make anyone want to blow off a little steam. One overused piece of glib idiocy at the start of the Trump era was ‘at least punk will be good’, as though punk can only be good when it flips the bird to right-wing, authritarian shit-headery rather than amplifying anything else. Sure, there’ve been plenty of great records over the last four years, but sometimes (across the whole of 2020, for instance) the levels of anger, fear and frustration can be overwhelming and you need a little space to goof around.

For some of us, though, goofing around is serious business - and here’s a record to illustrate that perfectly. Smirk is the solo project of Public Eye’s Nick Vicario, and while you’ll hear similarities to his main outfit across these 12 excellent tracks (from the off, you can imagine how PE might refine garage-carved nuggets like ‘S Construction’), here there’s less sang-froid and more… well, fun. The reference points you might expect are still there (Killed By Death comps and Wire, especially their 80s period, to name a couple), but with added scuzz and something even approaching joy - the whirling synths of ‘Eyes Conversing’ feel ominous, but they also convey a sense of delirious excitement. And dammit, it’s all fucking cool too.

With a name like Smirk, your first instinct might well be to wonder whether Vicario is laughing at us. The first line of the album (a defiant ‘it’s not funny’) should tell you that this isn’t the case, but the album certainly finds him in playful mood. The tasteful acoustic instrumental ‘Lude 2’ descends deliberately into farce as it speeds up and slows down like a turntable alternating speeds, or a record warping in real time. Obviously you’re gonna play this on vinyl, dear reader, purchased directly from Drunken Sailor or Feel It Records, but we all know that those other listeners - not us, the other guys - are gonna chiefly listen on phones or through laptop speakers.

It’s a 37-second sketch, but it prompts questions of what it means for technology to fail nowadays - can a record warp when it’s all bound up in digital files? Where does the disconnect lie between the player and the record; when the objects exist only virtually? Am I overthinking this? Oh, almost certainly, but it’s a record that’ll kick that noggin of yours into overdrive. Get involved, get addicted and laugh along.
Will Fitzpatrick

Released in the US on Feel It Records

credits

released March 5, 2021

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all rights reserved

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Drunken Sailor Records UK

Drunken Sailor Records started in 2010.
Releases.
Tiltwheel - Teach Your Children Hell 7" DS001
The Young Leaves - Life Underneath LP DS002
The Magnificent - 1981 7" DS003
Unfun - Shallow Graves 7" DS004
Crow Bait 7"
Rations 7"
Noise By Numbers/ The Magnificent 7"
Exit Condition 3 Album Series.
The Magnificent - Bad Lucky 7"
Discharge/ Off With Their Heads 7"
Shang-A-Lang - Waiting For The End 7"
... more

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