AAA Backstage Archive

First, Last & Only: Szymon's Posthumous Album 'Tigersapp' Released

Several months ago, AAA introduced the music of Szymon Borzestowski, who lost his battle with mental health in December 2012, aged 23. Though it’s a somewhat sombre occasion now, his first, posthumous and final album, ‘Tigersapp’ has been released over the weekend via Eloper Music under the simple moniker of his Christian name, Szymon (pronounced shim-on).  With little fanfare and great introspection, the world can finally see what a talent we’ve missed.

‘Tigersapp’ would have shone in any context. An ethereal collection of haunting yet somehow optimistic bedroom folktronica, twelve songs seem unable to provide both a beginning, middle and such a final end; yet they grow and bleed into each other, the changes in tempo seeming to be mid-song rather than in between.  Truthfully, ‘Tigersapp’ only feels complete because we already know the ending. But it should not be read as a complete work, for even while he was alive Szymon’s troubles impacted on his creative output. Rather, the album should perhaps be taken as an open-ended rhetorical question. ‘Tigersapp’ is Szymon’s question to the world, and the only way the listener can answer is with another question. So many of those will be ‘why’, but maybe they should be ‘how’, how someone who could express the world so eloquently and magically be unable to explain their own unhappiness.

The music of Szymon Borzestewski seems often mentioned as an afterthought, and then lathered with praise through a sort of sheepish embarrassment at the lack of an explanation for why the world is so bleak sometimes. However, it’s the most central piece of puzzle. Indeed, ‘Tigersapp’ is one of the only pieces we have. It’s a monument and an elegy; a handshake and a mournful wave.