To Athena's raw music defies burnout and financial struggles
For Tiffany Limacher, the logical path was not always the right one. The first Swiss-German song that the musician - better known as To Athena - wrote did not initially fit into her previous English-language discography.
Releasing it anyway felt right, she explains in the blue program "On The Rocks". "There were a few moments in my career when I could have taken the more logical, more lucrative step, but I took the step I wanted to take," says To Athena. "That was important to find out who I am."
"Angscht", as the song is called, now has almost four million streams on Spotify. But To Athena is not looking for a big commercial hit. "For me, it's about the music and being creative. Not about the numbers. Otherwise I would make completely different music."
Making a living from art in Switzerland is difficult anyway. To Athena calls her work as a musician "a business". She shares the fee for live performances with an orchestra - so there's not much left over for her. "Singing is not a shiny profession," she says. She currently lives off a scholarship from a foundation.
Before she received this, she was constantly working. "When you turn your hobby into a profession, it's difficult to recognize the boundary because it's fun," says To Athena. She worked for so long and so much until she burned out.
She deals with this experience in her latest song "Collide". "It was important for me to cross that line so that I could get to know it," says To Athena looking back.
"Nothing behind my music is AI and never will be"
Her music sometimes sounds so polished and perfect that she had to justify it - some suspected artificial intelligence behind it. So she recorded a video and sang directly into the camera. "To everyone who thinks I'm AI: I'm not," she wrote on social media. "Nothing behind my music is AI and never will be," the singer also clarifies in "On The Rocks".
She is not interested in artificial intelligence in music. "For me as a musician, the appeal of music is not the product, but the journey to get there," she says. Writing, trying things out, processing. AI takes away this process - and with it everything human - and is therefore rather problematic for music. But as long as AI does not endanger live music, she has no existential fear of it.
To Athena can currently be seen on the 3+ show "Sing meinen Song". She initially feared that she might not like the versions of her other songs. Fortunately, this worry was not confirmed. "You are gifted with your own songs in such different versions," says To Athena. "That's just beautiful."
