Antony Szmeirek announces second album along with biggest UK tour dates yet
Greater Manchester spoken word artist Antony Szmeirek has finally revealed the name, cover art and release date for his second album, along with his biggest run of UK tour dates yet.
The Tameside teacher turned full-time artist dropped his maiden record, Service Station at the End of the Universe, back in February 2025, and now, just over a year on from its launch, he’s getting ready to deliver his highly anticipated follow-up.
Entitled Decoding Birdsong, the sophomore studio project is scheduled for this summer, with a series of live shows booked for the following autumn.
Having already dropped lead single ‘The Heron’ earlier this year, Szmeirek has just released the opener from his upcoming LP, which is simply called ‘Chalk’; he’s also unveiled the rest of the tracklist and a rather striking bit of album artwork.
The Hyde-born artist is making big moves not only within the spoken word space but across multiple genres, with his music blending everything from indie, hip-hop, electronica and more.
His latest song, for instance, is more of an acid-house-esque meets contemporary EDM outing, and has quickly gone down as a popular addition among fans.
On the album name itself, he’s never one to shy away from a weird title or two – case in point, ‘The Great Pyramid of Stockport’ from his debut and ‘Dave’s Angling Superstore’ on this new record.
The 34-year-old carries that same idiosyncrasy throughout his lyricism and creative concepts, as well.
‘Chalk’ is a perfect example of this, as the song is inspired by The Edge of Everything documentary: a film about the career of legendary British snooker player, Ronnie O’Sullivan.
Here’s the music video…
As for his latest raft of live shows, these will be some of the biggest domestic gigs that the local lad has played in his career so far.
In addition to a pair of hometown shows here in Manchester, he is set to play a dozen different cities across Great Britain and Ireland.
Antony Szmierek UK/IE tour dates – October 2026
We’ve highlighted the Northern stops for you, too:
- 8 – O2 Academy Leeds, Leeds, UK
- 9 – The Level, Nottingham, UK
- 11 – Cambridge Junction, Cambridge, UK
- 12 – O2 Academy Oxford, Oxford, UK
- 14 – CHALK, Brighton, UK
- 15 – O2 Forum Kentish Town, London, UK
- 16 – O2 Academy Bournemouth, Bournemouth, UK
- 17 – O2 Academy Bristol, Bristol, UK
- 20 – Queen Margaret Union (QMU), Glasgow, UK
- 21 – Newcastle University, Newcastle, UK
- 23 – Manchester Academy, Manchester, UK
- 28 – The Button Factory, Dublin, IE
It’s also worth noting that ‘Smerick’ will also be joining the legendary ‘Bard of Salford’ himself, John Cooper Clarke, in November for a night of pure poetry.
For those of you looking to grab tickets to his headline gig, they go on sale at 10am on Friday, 8 May via the likes of SeeTickets.
You can get ready to grab your tickets right HERE.
🌌 NEW: @antonyszmierek
— Manchester Academy🐝 (@MancAcademy) May 5, 2026
📅 Friday 23rd October 2026 // Manchester Academy
🎟️ TICKETS: On sale Friday 8th May via https://t.co/BpdBBdO5V7 pic.twitter.com/hcuTRWBYGO
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Featured Images — Press shots via Zak Watson (supplied via SJM Concerts)