Tymon Tymański

About Tymon Tymański

Jazzman, poet, punk rocker and celebrity-cum-provocateur Ryszard Tymon Tymański emerged in the mid-1980s from the Gdansk quasi-punk artistic milieu centred around the art collective Totart. He rose to fame in the music scene by being the bandleader and bassist of the now-iconic Miłość, whose formation was the defining moment of the so-called "yass"—a countercultural trend in Polish jazz, which Tymański named and became one of its most important figures, including as founder of the seminal Biodro Records label. Concurrently, he led the somewhat-serious Zappa-esque avant-rock band Kury, whose second release P.O.L.O.V.I.R.U.S. (1998)—recorded as an attempt to make the dumbest album in the world, per himself—achieved mainstream success and was awarded the Polish Grammy equivalent, a Fryderyk; during Tymański's acceptance speech, his mic was cut off when he started talking about how grossed out he was by showbiz.

Despite this—or perhaps because of it—by the 21st century, Tymon has become a regular guest of the Polish media: with his band the The Transistors, he recorded the soundtrack to Wojciech Smarzowski's big film The Wedding, collaborated with comedian Grzegorz Halama, wrote the film musical Polskie gówno (translating, roughly, to Polish Shit), co-hosted a show on the rock radio station Rock Radio, appeared on the reality show Asia Express and was nominated for the Nike Award for his memoir Sclavus. After years of countless collaborations, including with John Zorn, Lester Bowie, Lech Janerka and Robert Brylewski, he finally released his first solo album, Paszkwile (Libel), in 2019. It was followed up by 2022's Przeboje (Hits).