The duo Arigto, currently operating between Berlin and Tokyo, has been developing their own musical language – full of tension, silence and brutal beauty. Their new album Lungs, to be released on August 1, 2025, is a story about breathing – physiological, symbolic, acoustic. The starting point was the accordion inherited from Noah’s grandfather, which has evolved over time into the main theme and instrument of their latest project. Although the instrument was previously associated with tradition and nostalgia, in their approach it becomes a metaphor for the changes taking place in the body, memory and sound.
Lungs is also an attempt to go beyond familiar means – instead of digital processing and field recordings, Arigto opted for a raw exploration of a single source, engaging in a dialogue with its matter and limitations. Compared to previous albums such as Blind Immaterialist and Pretense, the new material breaks with the formula of multi-layered arrangements, focusing on the physicality of a single instrument. At the same time, there are echoes of the experience of working on film and video game music – narrative, focus on detail, space between sounds. In conversation, Arigto talks about returning to electronics, cinema as inspiration, composing in the context of player interaction, and how the past – the personal and the shared – is reflected in sound.
Artur Mieczkowski
Artur Mieczkowski: What is the meaning of the name Arigto? What does it mean to you?
Arigto: Hello, thanks for taking the time for the interview. There actually is no deeper meaning behind the name. We started our first project many years ago under the name “Arigato”. At that time, we produced vastly different music – maybe you can imagine how the music sounded like with that name (laughs). We felt the need to change our name with our first official release on Noisia’s label. It was quite a spontaneous idea – shortly before the release we deleted one “a”. We are quite happy with the name now and this coincidentally also made us easier to find on the internet even though many search engines still recommend Arigato instead sometimes – maybe we should have deleted even more letters!
A.M.: Why did the accordion—an instrument from your childhood—become the focal point of your new album?
Arigto: Noah’s grandfather was quite a musical person and sometimes, among other instruments, played this old accordion, when Noah was a kid. Noah always cherished these memories. After his grandfather’s passing, Noah inherited his instruments. At the same time we were also tired of the cello. We have been using it for some time already and lost inspiration in using it, partially because it felt like it became a bit oversaturated and too trendy in the scene. So Noah wanted to give an accordion a try. Which started first as a pure homage to his grandfather and reflection on the childhood memories, became a bigger concept and project to us with influences of both of us. It was actually the project we worked the longest on so far with a couple of iterations and additional input from Aho Ssan and James Ginzburg. Through that, the album got less personal and the childhood reflection might have been buried under all the new other ideas. But at the same time we might have not explored the instrument in such depth. One good piece of advice from Aho Ssan was to focus more on novel, unusual sounds of the instrument. Maybe even approach it in the form of an instrument study instead of relying on electronic sounds / processing as we normally do. We came up with the breathing sounds that felt underutilized compared to what famous experimental accordion artists like Pauline Oliveros or Mario Batkovic did before and like a great metaphor.
A.M.: How did the memory associated with this instrument influence the sound and mood of the material?
Arigto: Like we already touched on in the previous answer, most memories come from Noah’s early childhood. The memories were already a bit opaque, less visual and more in an emotional form from a calmer and decelerated place. While we worked on the album we extended the core idea of purely reflecting on childhood memories. For example, we also thought a lot about the reflection of death and life in itself and the passing of close ones in general, which also influenced the sound and narrative of the album. So even though the memories might conceptually still be at the core of the project, it’s quite hard to distill what their actual influence was, especially considering we worked on it as a duo.
A.M.: You mention that the accordion “breathes” like lungs – do you see it as an extension of your life and emotions?
Arigto: Recently Sebastian met with our friend Haku Sungho at a concert of his in Tokyo. He is researching the instrument Tonkori for his PhD. The instrument has a small stone or marble which has no acoustic contribution but represents the soul of the instrument. We really love the idea and also the thought of an instrument inheriting the soul of its player through a long standing bond. Both age and crack and bend on the surface, and as much as we age, so do instruments. We liked the idea that the shape of breath represents different phases we go through in life, which we used to create a narrative throughout the album, as well. While we don’t necessarily connect it to our life and emotions, much rather we thought this sound might be a fitting metaphor for life in general. Throughout life our lungs live through many changes and so does the shape of our breath. They lose capacity and elasticity and respiratory muscles weaken. In death it stops. The accordion as a companion felt like the perfect instrument to mirror these transitions. A breath that is full of life, varies over time and in the end becomes shallow and fades away.
A.M.: How does this instrument resonate with earlier releases – unseen untold forgotten, Pretense, and Lukuss?
Arigto: We actually did this album before Lukuss. We finished Lukuss quite quickly and it felt more urgent to us to release it because we found a new digital synthesizer technique on GitHub which felt new and unexplored and we wanted to get it out in the open as soon as possible. “Lungs” is not very connected to the other albums though. “unseen, untold, forgotten” was more of an evolution of “Blind Immaterialist”. Similarly, “Persona” and “Pretense” share a strong connection through inspiration, concept, cover art and instrumentation. “Lungs” however stands on its own in this regard. From a technical perspective, it could be connected to “Persona” since it was the first project for us that explored an instrument we had no prior experience with.
A.M.: Previous releases were heavily electronic – why did you go for almost pure acoustic this time?
Arigto:
Like we already touched on our previous answer, it was actually the
other way around. “Lungs” was the first time we imposed a hard
limitation on ourselves and actually stuck with them – all sounds
shall be from the accordion. We forced ourselves not to manipulate
the sound in a recognizable way. The music we normally do is exactly
the opposite, no limitations at all, with a focus on emotion. We
usually enjoy creating unrecognizable sounds through post processing
the most.
At some point, due to external circumstances
and some frustrating events, the process of producing “Lungs”
became exhausting to us. We were quite lucky about the request for
creating the Selfloss OST while we were finishing “Lungs” since
it took our minds off the album and relieved us from what we felt at
the time. We only enjoyed working on that game, since so many tracks
were needed. It felt like a lot of pressure fell from us and we were
lucky that Alex was such a good fit. Following that, our next album
“Lukuss” was completely electronic, heavily processed sounds with
no limitations, no concept and a focus on more emotional music.
A.M.: Can we talk about an artistic “return to your roots” and what does this movement add to your artistic identity?
Arigto: We really fell in love with electronics in “Lukuss” again. This album especially felt like a moment of “back to the roots”. We both grew up having an education in classical music, but when we formed our duo in high school many years ago, we started with electronic music. After the long focus and integration of real recording of acoustic instruments we enjoyed doing an album purely electronic again which is more in the realm of previous work like the albums we released on DIVISION.
A.M.: Since you co-created soundtracks for films (Island of the Dolls, Aria) and games (Selfloss, Quite a Ride), what characteristics of cinema and games have found their way into the new album?
Arigto: Cinema in general definitely had an influence on our music. Particularly slow and meticulously crafted shots, especially from older movies heavily inspired us. It feels natural to us to write visual music, which probably is the main reason why we were commissioned to work on the OST and sound design projects in the first place. Many of our favorite composers were also connected to film and it helped us discover very interesting artists.
Even though we play computer games from time to time, despite Bloodborne and Anno 1602, they never consciously inspired us. In the past, we rarely listened to game scores on their own, but with our recent new interest due to Selfloss and the rise of low budget indie games we discovered some great music. While it feels like we are getting more and more distant from our teens, it is also fascinating to see how just opening an old game and listening to the first second of music can bring back so many memories about the game.
A.M.: How did your experience with soundtracks influence the structure and narrative of your latest material?
Arigto: Composing for games is quite different from doing so for movies. Games, for the most part, don’t impose a fixed time frame. You often need to capture an atmosphere, but keep it broad enough for different player interactions. We often enjoyed including completely unexpected moments or distinct background noises. Our work on scores flattened this out a bit because the music can’t be too dominant or clash with the game sounds. This is something that leaked especially into “Lungs”, where we tried to stick with themes and specific ideas and not change too much. While this was an interesting approach, it felt like we were a bit stuck with the idea that a piece should only be based around one core motive or idea for our solo albums. At the moment we try to rekindle this kind of abstract or narrative evolution with hard cuts as this is something we were always drawn to.
A.M.: Your multifaceted work (EPs, festivals, exhibitions) indicates an open style of working: what were the sessions for creating the new album like – improvisation, collaboration, structuring?
Arigto: The process resolved mostly around improvisation until we had a track with elements that would stand out to us or could stand on their own feet. Then we try to focus on this idea and try to use it for the world building around that track. Structuring is something we mostly do in later stages of projects. In some cases we also recycle older works and adapt them into the world of the album. Recently, collaborations helped us in bridging bigger projects. It’s nice to explore new ideas, with new inputs and be busy, creatively. Unfortunately, we usually don’t find a proper context to release them in but we are thinking about releasing them in the form of a collaborational EP.
A.M.: Arigto manages to balance between cinematic and personal, intimate sound – where do you draw the line between “spectacle” and “meditation”?
Arigto: This is hard to frame in words. Mostly we don’t really think about it. We mostly trust our intuition when it comes to doing music and assessing our work. To us, it’s most important how it feels at the time and that it keeps a spark for a couple of days. In the later stages of production it can become quite meticulous, where we often talk about phrases and phases and what’s necessary and what isn’t. We do that, because some form of a balance is important to us and to us, this balance is shifting constantly.
A.M.: To what extent is the new album a personal ritual and an attempt to “settle accounts” with the past through the instrument of memory?
Arigto: In the beginning it was much more related to death than in the end. While it is nice to try to capture a person musically, it has mainly been an inspiration that kicked off the project and laid its conceptual framework. Ultimately, it quickly became something the both of us shared and therefore less personal and less of a reprocessing for Noah.
A.M.: Thank you very much for the interview. I wish you the best of luck with your plans.
Arigto: Thank you for taking the time! We really enjoy your magazine and wish you best of luck with it!