RIEKO releases new single ‘Fruit’ with ritualistic art film music video

Japanese-born composer and multidisciplinary artist RIEKO has released her new single ‘Fruit’, alongside an accompanying music video.

The track arrives via Diasporas Now, the live art platform and cultural agency she founded to support Global Majority artists working across experimental music and performance.

RIEKO’s work moves fluidly across disciplines. Her classical training collides with heavy metal intensity and left-field club textures, producing a sound that feels ritualistic and confrontational.

She has previously held residencies at the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA), Tate Modern and Tate Britain, and is a graduate of the Royal College of Art.

The single is accompanied by an art film directed by Jesse May Fisher, co-creative directed by RIEKO and choreographed by Lewis Walker.

It premiered at the ICA in early March as the finale of Diasporas Now’s year-long residency programme, and has since been selected for the BAFTA-qualifying Aesthetica Short Film Festival.

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Visually, the film unfolds as a stark performance piece. RIEKO moves through a haunted, minimal space, performing ritual gestures of prayer that hover somewhere between demonic possession and ethereal devotion.

Its most arresting moment arrives when she slowly pulls a braided strand of her own hair from her mouth, like a tail drawn from the serpent head of an ouroboros.

The narrative draws on the Buddhist story of Kishibojin, a demon who transforms into a protector of children and replaces flesh with pomegranate seeds.

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Musically, ‘Fruit’ is sparse and tightly wound. Guttural bass pushes against ghostly strings and restrained piano lines recorded with a quartet.

RIEKO’s voice enters as a series of hushed invocations, suspended between lament and devotional chant. The track closes on a simple refrain, “You need me”, delivered with a calm, unwavering certainty.

Watch below.