Rikuto Fujimoto was born and raised in Kyoto. He is currently in his final year studying composition at the Tokyo University of Arts, after which he will relocate to embark on his MA at London College of Communication. While Riktuo’s main instruments are piano and clarinet, he was drawn to the former when he was only 2 or 3 years old. He was taught piano and solfège at an early age, on an old upright piano at home, listening to his mother play, and then learning to copy the music from TV commercials before eventually falling in love with Bach’s Chorales.

Rikuto has previously produced multimedia art that combines video and synthesised sonics, and in a very short space of time completed a significant series of commissions as an arranger and producer, remixing other artists' songs and producing sound logos for radio stations, fashion shows, film scores, galleries, government-funded public installations, and the Japanese entertainment empire Genda GiGO. In 2023, he took part in an ambient workshop, held for Tokyo teens, and he participated in NHK Historical drama Dosuru Ieyasu.

Rikuto’s style ranges widely, from aggressive electronics to meditative ambient to quiet classical pieces.  In the past, he’s drawn inspiration from “duality”, “light and Shadow”, “the coexistence of the man-made world with nature”, a fluidity, and how colour relates to sound. While he learned the intricate and experimental know-how of contemporary music in his school years, he found his style in simple and universal music. His musical sensibility was sharpened more than ever as he confronted himself under the pandemic, during which he put together his debut album, 'Distant Landscapes'.

'Distant Landscapes', is a suite of sometimes short pieces that is concerned with nostalgic memory. During the recording, the compositions themselves were played from recollection, since Rikuto purposely did not write any scores. It was a visit to his grandparents’ birthplace that sparked the project. Surprised to find that he was filled with feelings of nostalgia for somewhere that he’d never been before, he began to wonder about memories, mental landscapes, that we may have somehow inherited, that lie dormant, deep in the mind. How our family, surroundings, nature and nurture, and also our ancestors, help shape personal identity.

The carefully crafted, accomplished compositions are all centred on Rikuto’s solo piano and his unique vocalisations. Angelic and androgynous, these soar somewhere between a choirboy and Vashti Bunyan’s fragile “outsider” folk. Free of language, more concerned with emotions, sensual and abstract, they allow listeners to ascribe each “song” their own meaning. Or simply experience the long-player as a peaceful, calming wash. Here, Rikuto adds to FatCat’s catalogue of artists, such as Ian William Craig, who view the voice as not a narrative device, but rather another instrument. The pieces do, however, possess song-like structures, with a palette of particular pronunciations and vowels. Comparable, but in actuality unrelated to jazz scatting, Rikuto’s vocals have a lot more in common with Keith Jarrett and Glenn Gould’s passionate, unconscious, performances.

'Distant Landscapes' will be released on FatCat Records’ post-classical/modern composition imprint 103701.