Track Listing

1. I Imagine
2. King Dragonfly
3. Card Nation
4. Sleepy Eye
5. Lapis Lazuli
6. Balloon In A Cage
7. Cherry Blossom
8. Love Bird
9. Fearful Dream
10. Tears Of A Poet
11. So Red
12. Flying Cat
13. Lost Child

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #71170 in Music
• Released on: 2001-06-04
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .16 pounds

Amazon.co.uk Review
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

DJ Magazine
"Infinitely charming and eminently seductive...yet more evidence that Chief Wizard Yokota is a master of building dream worlds" 4.5/5

iDJ
"transcends both continents and genres... a chilled brand of euphoria. Pure joy" 5/5

Customer Reviews

Wow
It's certainly different from Sakura. Grinning Cat is much less, well, ambient. The ideas are more aggressive, and he uses samples more frequently (and with startling orgininality). In this sense, some parts of it reminded me of Endtroducing by D J Shadow. Grinning Cat is fascinating music, recommendable to anyone whose musical tastes go deeper than S Club Seven. The fist time you listen to the track Flying Cat, your jaw will drop. Stunning. A bizarre combination of orchestral shreiks, rich in filmic atmosphere and enhanced half way through by an astonishing military drum pattern played across the beat. It one of the strange and beautiful things to come out of this world.

Quality follow-up to 'Sakura'
It was always going to be difficult to follow up his previous masterpiece of an album, but he has managed it with style and class.

A bit more heavy on the percussion than the previous album, 'Grinning Cat' is nonetheless a very good album. It pursues the same themes and sounds as 'Sakura'.

'Sakura' will always be in the minds of people, so when this album is being discussed it will always be in the former album's shadow. I feel this is a shame as it stands alone itself as a great album.

In simple terms, if you enjoyed 'Sakura' then you will very much enjoy this.

Yokota creates a new genre of music - again.
I have owned this CD for two years and have listened to it maybe eight times so far. This might seem a lot or a little depending who you are but it is a habit which needs explanation.

This CD is something for special occasions where nothing else will do. The textures created demand your full attention quite simply because your brain cannot comprehend what it is listening to. Some tracks are simply beautiful while others create an unusual image in your mind's eye. Overall, the music is nothing like you've ever heard before and this is why it deserves a five star rating.

Buy this CD if you are a true music lover who is not afraid of unmanufactured music.