This song is about my own refusal to stay in one place for too long. Even when I settle, there’s always a part of me waiting to leave. The stay of refusal feels like it tangles in my hair, a reminder that I can’t sit still forever. It’s restless, high-energy, and carries the push to keep moving forward.


The Refusal to Stay

Aftermath is the debut album from Athen Tobias, the musical project of Brisbane-based artist Adam Oriti. Known first as a visual artist, Oriti spent years painting bold abstractions before grief redirected his creative path. In the silence that followed loss, music became the medium to carry what painting no longer could.

The album is both elegy and rebirth. Each track is crafted from original poetry written by Oriti, shaped into song with the aid of AI as a creative tool, not a replacement. The process became a collaboration between human memory and machine possibility, giving form to words that might have otherwise remained on the page.

Athen Tobias is named in honor of Oriti’s late pet, whose memory anchors the project. The music, like his paintings, is made for those who take time to look closer, patient listeners who uncover meaning in the layers.

Aftermath is not a polished pop record but a document of survival. It is an album that rewards attention, an intimate snapshot of an artist transforming grief into sound.