“It’s mad and it’s perfect,” is how Antony describes the experience of releasing his but album “Service Station at the End of the Universe,” released in February 2025. In a conversation with Antony about the album, he described: “Something I take solace in is that the album as a concept is still held as something important, because I wrote it as something to be listened to start to finish,” going on to confirm he is already working on the next one.
Antony combines the art forms of electronic dance music and spoken word to create his sound. Whilst typically seen as opposite ends of the spectrum, his live show proves otherwise in the way he is skilled at making the two modalities complement each other. When asked what function the two styles serve, separately and together, Antony explained: “That’s always the challenge, holding those two things up against each other and trying not to go too far down either path. There’s a temptation to just make a huge dance tune and give up on the lyrics, or make the words a bit more easy to digest I guess. Successful dance music usually just has one iconic line repeated over and over, and that’s because
it works. So I’m already asking for a lot from people. But I then try and write across multiple genres, inspired by electronic music always but having the guitars front and centre which I think gives me license to do something a bit different. But it does work if you get the balance right, and when it happens people are able to dance and listen to the words at the same time and it just becomes this secret third thing.”
Pictured here at his SXSW headline show with BBC Introducing, Antony shared a particularly memorable moment with his audience when he asked them to look at the moon with him, his show coinciding with the presence of the Blood Moon in the sky. Antony recalled how “this cast of mad characters from Austin started singing at it and we joined in,” going on to explain that spirituality does play a big part in the show and the writing. “You have to believe in something, in magic or coincidence or fate or luck or whatever. I want to believe there’s a reason we’re here and that we meet the people we meet.”
SXSW saw Antony’s first step in to the US live scene, but he has a long touring history in the UK, and his local scene of Manchester too. He also played at major festivals Reading and Leeds and Glastonbury this year. Antony describes: “I get a real kick out of winning over a festival crowd. The ones who have been dragged to see you with their arms folded, and when you get those moving but the end of the set you feel like you’ve really connected. A headline show for me sometimes just feels like holding on for dear life, they’re already there with you and I find those shows quite overwhelming on an emotional level. Just the sound of them and how they feel and what they mean. Everything all at once.”
With a goal to foster a peer-to-peer artist recommendation web, we asked Antony for some new music recommendations from his own community. He chose: Thredd, and Gans, both of whom have just released new debut albums, and Ellur, who you can learn more about on page 20 in this issue!
