Photo: Yasuhiro Ohara
Mouse On The Keys released a new EP last month entitled Arche, which will be followed in September with a full length album of the same name. On the EP, the Japanese trio bring the piano to the fore again, embracing back their instrumental basics. The EP’s magnificent opening track, ‘Praxis’, has been paired with an accompanying video, directed by Hiromichi Yano. Take a look below.
Mouse On The Keys turned our heads a long time ago with their blend of influences and genres, from classical, jazz and electronic to math-rock, hardcore and heavy metal. So new music from the Tokyo based trio is welcomed with excitement. Akira Kawasaki (drum, keyboards), Atsushi Kiyota (piano, keyboards) and Daisuke Niitome (piano, keyboards), who make up the trio, have just released a new EP yesterday. Entitled Arche, the four-track EP sees them place the piano at the core of their sound again. Unlike their 2018 album tres, and last year’s single, ‘Circle’, which featured vocals and guitar, on the new EP Mouse On The Keys embrace back the instrumental basics. For a taste of what to expect, here’s the magnificent opening track ‘Praxis’.
Arche is out now through Topshelf Records
Last year, Japanese instrumental trio Mouse On The Keys released their magnificent third album, The Flowers Of Romance, which was one of our 15 Picks of the Year. They are ready to follow it up with a new EP entitled Out of Body, slated for an early 2017 release. Encompassing their usual far-flung influences and genres, from classical, jazz and electronic to math-rock, hardcore and heavy metal, Out of Body sees the band “take a darker turn”, as the press release describes. The EP “carries a more sombre atmosphere than that of previous releases, as each track is centered on the macabre theme of near-death experiences”. The band’s own Akira Kawasaki explains:
“After the disaster of Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in 2011 and through my experience of suffering from asymptomatic brain infarction, I came to feel death familiar. I have been influenced by the book ‘Near-death experience’ by a Japanese journalist Takashi Tachibana and the documentary TV program about it”
Out of Body arrives on January 25th via Topshelf Records and we can already get a taste from it with the powerful and poignant ‘Earache’.
As the year draws to a close, we picked our favourite Albums of 2015.
With two outstanding albums under their belt since their inception in 2006, Tokyo based trio Mouse On The Keys released earlier this year their magnificent third album, The Flowers Of Romance. The compositions of Akira Kawasaki (drum, keyboards), Atsushi Kiyota (piano, keyboards) and Daisuke Niitome (piano, keyboards), who make up the trio, exhibit far-flung influences from Burt Bacharach to Claude Debussy, from Johann Sebastian Bach to Beastie Boys, from Napalm Death to Steve Reich. Mouse On The Keys also cited western philosophers like Ferdinand de Saussure, Sigmund Freud or Karl Marx as important influences on the album.
“When I joined Mouse On The Keys”, said Kawasaki, “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”.
Unlike previous efforts written together, The Flowers Of Romance saw each member writing songs themselves, before teaming up with collaborative guests, including violin player Atsuko Hatano, trumpetist Daisuke Sasaki and guitarist Masahiro Tobita, amongst many other musicians.
The press release describes the album as “an exhilarating utopian masterpiece of venturesome music made for ears with a deep sense of intense and playful radicalness, precision, fidelity and frankness.”
The Flowers of Romance is out now worldwide via Mule Musiq. To get you enticed for this release, here’s the video for the tremendous album track ‘leviathan’.
Hailing from Tokyo, Mouse On The Keys are an instrumental post-rock electronic jazz trio formed in 2006 and consisting of Akira Kawasaki (drum, keyboards), Atsushi Kiyota (piano, keyboards) and Daisuke Niitome (piano, keyboards).
They have just announced the release of a new EP called Machinic Phylum, due out on July 18th via Machu Picchu Industrias. I’ll keep my eyes peeled for new tracks and more info about this.
If you haven’t yet savoured their music, here’s a couple of stunning tracks to blow you away, ‘Spectres De Mouse’ off 2009’s An Anxious Object and ‘Saigo No Basan’, off 2007’s Sezession. Both albums were released via Machu Pichu Industrias in Japan and Denovali in the rest of the world. Enjoy.