Meant To Gather is about the kind of gatherings that never should have happened. Moments that looked like joy if you squinted, but underneath were scattered, awkward, and wrong. The song moves on bongo rhythm and chant, carrying the unease of people together but never really together.

Meant to Gather

After years as a visual artist, I found myself starting Athen Tobias. I had spent that time painting bold abstractions, but grief shifted my path. In the quiet that followed, music became the only vessel that could carry what painting no longer could.

My first album, Aftermath, was born in that space. It is both elegy and rebirth, made from poetry I have written over many years. Some came from childhood, some from more recent memory. Some sat in old notebooks. Some were written fresh in a moment of catharsis. For the first time, I gave these words sound, with the help of AI as a technical assistant.

I named the project in honour of my late pet Athen, whose presence still anchors everything I make. Like my paintings, these songs are for people who take time to look closer. Listeners who are willing to sit with something and find meaning in the layers.

With my second album, Submerge, I step forward. If Aftermath was the album I needed to make, Submerge is the album I wanted to make. The sound moves between textured ballads, songs driven by guitar and rhythm, electronic chanting, and moments that rise with choral energy. It still holds that emotional weight, but it is braver and broader than before.

Together, these albums tell the story of what it means to begin again. From survival to immersion. From silence to sound. From aftermath to submersion.