The yoga mat is out. The incense is lit. The instructor’s voice is soothing. And somewhere between the first vinyasa flow and the final savasana, Antony Szmierek is quietly coming apart at the seams. “Yoga Teacher” drops you into that exact moment — one eye open, brain sprinting — and makes the unravelling sound like the catchiest thing you’ll hear all week. You’re nodding along, tapping your foot, and then the first chorus hits: you’re listening to someone work through class anxiety, a crush, and childhood longing, all in downward dog. It shouldn’t work. It really, really does.
The production has one foot in the Haçienda and the other at a spoken-word night in Withington. The synths have that late-70s warmth — Pet Shop Boys via the Northern Quarter — while the bassline bounces with a house-inflected groove that nods to early-90s Manchester without cosplaying it. There’s a hint of continental shimmer in the mix, but this is fundamentally UK indie-dance: Hot Chip with a Mike Skinner mouth and a New Order pulse. Where it separates itself from the obvious The Streets comparison is in the emotional range. Szmierek doesn’t just observe; he spirals in real time, and the production holds space for it. The narrator picks apart capitalism, class betrayal, and the odd comfort of wanting to be looked after, all with deadpan sincerity that makes you laugh first and feel something unexpected second. The lyrical density never clogs the groove. That’s harder to pull off than it sounds.
The video commits fully to the dry premise. We open on Antony Szmierek — mat out, posture correct, expression carefully neutral — in a yoga class that feels too still, too composed, like a man doing exactly what he’s been told while his brain runs at full sprint. The direction keeps things clean and unhurried, which is the right call: no frantic cutting, no heavy-handed visual metaphor, just sustained deadpan that mirrors the song’s delivery. At 0:45, small cracks appear: a glance held too long, a pose that wavers. The video earns its keep by letting the absurdity breathe rather than hammering it. By 1:30, when the groove fully locks and Szmierek loosens up physically, something funny and moving happens simultaneously. It’s the visual equivalent of the lyric itself: comedy on the surface, something rawer underneath, and you’re not entirely sure when the switch happened.
Yoga Teacher is a proper breath of fresh air — the kind of single that makes his debut full-length ‘Service Station at the End of the Universe‘ feel essential listening. If Antony Szmierek holds this balance of wit, warmth, and spiralling self-awareness across the record, we’re in for something special.
Inhale.
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