Manchester born & bred wordsmith Antony Szmierek marks his intent for 2023 with the release of his brand new single ‘Rock & A Calm Place’, out today following a first play from Lauren Laverne on BBC 6 Music.
Accompanied by a charming official music video, shot at Pots and Pans Monument in Uppermill, Manchester, the single is a wake-up-later, straight through crew anthem. A song for pondering about life to, or having booming out of the speakers while your life unfolds in front. Music for champions. In Antony’s words, it’s “A reluctantly optimistic take on the Myth of Sissyphus but with lie ins, step counts and selfies.”
‘Rock & A Calm Place’ follows previous singles ‘Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Fallacy’ and ‘Working Classic’, both of which spent multiple weeks on the B-List at 6 Music, as well as receiving support from Jack Saunders’ ‘Future Artists’ show on Radio 1. Further support continues to pour in from the likes of Steve Lamacq, Craig Charles, Lauren Laverne, Mary Anne Hobbs, Nemone and Chris Hawkins.
All three singles will feature on the newly announced, self-released ‘Poems To Dance To’ EP, due out in March; a collection of songs with Szmierek’s introspective lyricism which has seen him garner comparisons as lauded as “Mike Skinner spliced with Simon Armitage”, further cementing the consensus that he is one of the next great British songwriters.
In fact, Antony Szmierek wrote words before songs. Novels at first, of which he’s published two – but he realised what he wanted people to take from them was “little quotes, or soundbites”. So, gradually his writing became shorter and shorter, boiling down into short stories and then ultimately poems on stage. With his art, Szmierek joins a host of contemporaries whose skill for crafting melodies and lyrics translate beautifully into both songs and written works.
