Fri 28 Mar

Antony Szmierek (Live)

About this event

Antony Szmierek comes to Mar­gate on Fri 28 Mar as part of his Ser­vice Sta­tion At The End Of The Uni­verse Tour.

For Antony Szmierek, sin­cer­i­ty is every­thing. ​“I’m not being iron­ic, using a per­sona or wear­ing a mask, my music is just me express­ing myself hon­est­ly,” he says. ​“There’s nowt to hide behind. It’s sin­cer­i­ty on over­drive – a space where peo­ple can con­nect with each other.”

The past few years have been a wild ride for the Man­ches­ter-based poet, writer and pro­duc­er. Cut­ting his teeth on the Man­ches­ter spo­ken word scene and gain­ing noto­ri­ety for his seam­less flow skew­er­ing every­thing from the hard­ships of con­tem­po­rary British life to find­ing the unex­pect­ed beau­ty in the every­day, it was the 2023 release of his sin­gle ​“The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Fal­la­cy” that kicked off his mete­oric ascent. Set against the back­drop of a pound­ing kick drum and club-ready synths, Szmierek lets loose a stream of con­scious­ness that lays out his vision of musi­cal vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty and com­mu­nal escapism, say­ing on the track: ​“Everything’s iron­ic now, post-post-punk. Take me away.”

The ear­worm­ing record soon found its way onto the BBC6 Music air­waves and led Szmierek to be named an Artist of the Year 2023 by the sta­tion. There fol­lowed appear­ances on Lat­er… with Jools Hol­land, a BBC Radio 1 Mai­da Vale ses­sion, mul­ti­ple tri­umphant Glas­ton­bury sets and a flur­ry of com­par­isons: to the pave­ment prose of The Streets, the poet­ry of John Coop­er Clarke if he found him­self at the Haçien­da, or like Jarvis Cock­er for the UK Garage gen­er­a­tion. Yet, with the release of his 2023 indie-influ­enced EP Poems To Dance To and now his banger-filled, dance­floor-focused debut album, Ser­vice Sta­tion at the End of the Uni­verse, Szmierek cements his sound as one that is dis­tinct­ly his own.

Schedule

7:30 PM