"when i joined mouse on the keys, i envisioned a concept that mixes diverse elements of contemporary music, such as dynamic hardcore drumming and modern french harmony with the feeling of a detroit techno follower. since we got an offer to release an album on mule musiq - a label with much diversity in dance and contemporary music - our new album has been pulled out of us by itself" reveals the japanese acoustic and electric piano player daisuke niitome. together with drummer and piano player akira kawasaki and synth and piano player atsushi kiyota he is mouse on the keys – an energetic, hard to pigeonhole tokyo based trio that combines the sound of divers pianos and synthesizers with out-there drumming. in their music locomotive us-american hardcore rhythms and virtuosic post-rock grooves dance fearless with jazz, contemporary classi c and shreds of electronic music. since their foundation in 2006 the band has release three acclaimed albums on labels like the japanese imprint machu picchu industries or demanded german denovali records and toured live around europe, canada, brazil and asia. as their main influences the musical libertines name a miscellaneous range of labels, artists and bands like on-u sound, burt bacharach, claude debussy, bad brains, kreator, material, johann sebastian bach, beastie boys, napalm death and steve reich. all of them left their traces on their third album "flowers of romance" - an irrepressible amalgam of spontaneous ideas and precise written harmonics. during the recordings in tokyo and the little coast town izu between this years april and may the trio worked for the first time with material that was not written together in teamwork. instead each member wrote songs by themselves and the band collaborated with guests like the violin player atsuko hatano, trumpet sorcerer daisuke sasaki, guitarist masahiro tobita of the legendary japanese hardcore band envy and many more befriended singers, contra bass, clarinet and saxophone players. together they tuned in a live sound that gives all compositions a human touch and enlarges them into a higher level of music. "i want to express a kind of four-dimensional sound like an m.c. escher painting," says founding member akira kawasaki about his artistic aim. all ten arrangements that listen to names like "i shut my eyes in order to see" or "the lonely crowd " come close to his vision. they tolerate diversity. they explore space. they are romantic and explosive. they have post-rock and free jazz moments that partly remind on the music of tortoise or john zorn. their virtuosic mix of alert piano-playing, intense drumming, chamber music moments, synth grooves, celestial ambient structures and beautiful abstract melodies is orgasmic and passionate in any moment. they also covered a song by their hero maurice ravel and claim that western philosophers like ferdinand de saussure, sigmund freud or karl marx had a major influence during the writing process of "flowers of romance". a multi-layered superstructure that mouse on the keys morphed into an exhilarating utopian masterpiece of venturesome music made for ears with a deep sense of intense and playful radicalness, precision, fidelity and frankness.