The multitalented musician releases his latest collaboration with Japanese vocalist Sakura Seiko, a soaring alternative pop song that showcases both performers’ skills for delivering emotionally profound music.
Akkin, whose real name is Mauro Signorelli, is an Italian instrumentalist who has built a colourful career as both a session musician and a soloist. Starting solo before branching out as a session musician in 2021, Akkin soon developed a signature style through his release of rock, metal and guitar-powered alternative instrumental tracks often featuring collaborations with Asian artists. Through this, Akkin has built up an impressive portfolio of tracks utilised in Anime theme songs from series such as Chainsaw Man and Bocchi the Rock, while working with several Japanese artists such as Aimer and Hiroyuki Sawano.
Akkin’s new single ‘Eternal Breath’ is the musician’s third collaboration with Sakura Seiko, an upcoming singer from Japan, after previous singles ‘Under the March Rain’ and ‘A Pocket Full of Stars’ from 2025. The song was also included in the performer’s instrumental EP ‘Dawn’ from earlier this year; lending a wistful and deeply emotive edge to the EP’s collection of acoustic hits.
The song begins with a delicate piano melody which is soon joined by silky strings and Akkin’s gentle strums on the acoustic guitar; creating a lulling, melancholic ambience in the very first seconds of the track. This sorrowful atmosphere is then emphasised by Seiko’s breathtaking vocals that effortlessly lend soul to Akkin’s tenderly beautiful instrumental arrangement. With the sheer clarity and exceptional quality of Seiko’s melodic vocals, the track’s lyrical themes of longing and fractured love are given life from the beginning of the first verse as Seiko describes drowning in her unceasing feelings of love and devotion to a lover who is gone or far out of reach.
The song’s powerful and grand chorus perfectly befits the subject matter here as well as Seiko’s masterful build-up of passion through her restrained yet emotional vocal performance, as Akkin’s epic guitar accompaniment rushes in on a great crescendo. Listeners will have no choice but to fall head over heels here for the duo’s exquisitely refined partnership as well as for the track’s bittersweetly romantic sound. Despite the track’s lyrics all being in Japanese, audiences will still have no trouble appreciating Seiko’s mellow vocals and the rich tapestry of emotions the two musicians are able to weave throughout the track. Indeed, the singer delivers the chorus’ lyrics (“I’ll look for you in the sky, I’ll find you here in my heart, Broken love, But pain is everlasting”) with an abundance of sombre feeling, but still with a hopeful edge that celebrates the essence of memory and an otherwise enduring love.
Akkin picks up the tempo slightly for the second verse with a soft percussive beat that melts pleasingly with the guitarist’s warm acoustic soundscape and Seiko’s yearning vocals. The lyrics here focus on painting a picture of the memories of a lost love which ultimately culminate in reminiscences that are painful but still treasured forever (“Your memory is my life”).
After the second chorus, Akkin continues his rousing accompaniment over the bridge while the lyrics consider how even the passage of time cannot take away the profound feelings towards a gone but never forgotten partner (“Wherever I am, I’ll be with you”). One more majestic chorus follows this, before Akkin adds gentle acoustic flourishes as Seiko’s airy vocals quietly echo over the graceful instrumental. It’s a wonderfully poignant end to a song that thrills with its expert composition and both artists’ skills in bringing the lyrics’ tragic contemplation of fractured love to the surface of the track; something that listeners will wholeheartedly appreciate with or without an understanding of the Japanese language.
Score/Outstanding: The quality of ‘Eternal Breath’ is undeniable and it’s clear to see why Akkin has chosen to collaborate with Seiko for the third time now. The song sensitively captures Akkin’s inspiring alternative music style and will surely become an instant hit with old and new listeners alike.
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