Susumu Yokota came to the attention of the clued-up musical public with Grinning Cat's predecessor Sakura, a minor ambient classic that found this homely Japanese sound technician showered with critical plaudits, and compared--not without good reason, we might add--to 1970s ambient pioneer Brian Eno. While Eno's classic Music for Airports was a muzak benchmark for sound in the public sphere, Yokota's muse follows an urge towards the bliss of privacy; Grinning Cat is, Yokota explains, an album about living out a domestic fairytale with his girlfriend and a family of cats in the quiet suburbs of Tokyo. Its essence is the exquisitely layered minimalism of "King Dragonfly" where hands clap, drums pitter-patter, wind chimes gentle sway and an acoustic guitar is neatly picked to create an ornate, yet uniform tapestry of sounds--but deeper into "Grinning Cat", more disquieting moments simmer. On "Fearful Dream", psychedelic pipes and an atonal banjo strum bubble under the gentle, stuttering loop of sparse piano, while album closer "Lost Child" breathes spectral hushes and unsettling glitches through alternate speakers in the most disconcerting manner. Still, Yokota is only playing; Grinning Cat is a perfect find for fans of the quiet stuff--warm, comforting and always welcoming to visitors. --Louis Pattison