Japanese guitarist Leo Takami released his first US album (after two impossible to find albums) Felis Catus and Silence in late February 2020, meaning that the pandemic scuttled much of a chance to build a wider audience. But for those fortunate enough to hear it then, the album charmed and assuaged during that fraught and uneasy time. Takami’s playing is felicitous, readily likened to John Abercrombie or the Windham Hill label, but the ease of it belies the complexity teeming just beneath the surface. He engages with metallophone, piano, orchestral strings, and synth backdrops, his lines nimble and light (bringing to mind the poem about the fog’s “little cat feet”). Takami creates an aural illusion not unlike a Calder mobile, in motion yet still, beautiful from any angle.