Lately, I’ve been thinking about how we remember our past. As summer continues winding down and vacation time dries up, I’ve been reflecting on how we try to capture those special moments in the places we visit, whether on holiday or during a break from day-to-day life. How does one remember these experiential places? Increasingly, it seems that many do so by using their smartphones to capture every second of their lives through videos or by buying memorabilia tied to the place. Yet, in certain locations, like Sapporo’s JR Tower, there exists a distinct way for its owners to enhance your experience: Music for an Observatory Symphonic Scenes.
If you’ve ever had the pleasure of venturing to Japan’s unofficial northern winter wonderland, Hokkaidō, you’ve likely visited its largest city, Sapporo. Surrounded by mountains to the west and south, and lined with numerous rivers, its location in northern Japan shares a similar climate with my home city, Chicago. Although it is the fifth-largest city in Japan by population, its lower population density gives it a more “blue-collar” vibe, where it’s not unusual for people to live what we would call a “suburban lifestyle.” Far from the hustle and bustle of Tokyo or the nightlife of Osaka, Sapporo offers a slower pace of life for those that are willing to brave its snowy winters.
For those who experience Sapporo for the first time, one of the most popular sites to explore is located due east before even stepping out of JR Hokkaidō’s Sapporo Station. Inside the station, you’ll find Sapporo JR Tower, a multi-purpose complex divided into three sections: West, Center, and East.
The West section houses Daimaru Sapporo, a large department store where visitors can find the latest in luxury goods and enjoy some of Sapporo’s iconic foods at the restaurants on the 8th floor. The Center section features a nine-floor mega mall dubbed “Stellar Place,” where multinational brands like Disney, L’Occitane, and Diesel mix with homegrown stores like HMV, Muji, and Sanseido, competing for your hard-earned yen alongside Cinema Frontier, Sapporo’s state-of-the-art movie theater chain. Yet, for all the fleeting moments of retail dopamine you can experience before stepping outside into Sapporo, it’s the Eastern section that will likely leave a lasting impression on visitors making the trek to Hokkaidō.
In Sapporo’s JR Station East Wing, you’ll find the striking 38-floor JR Tower. Once you move beyond the first six floors dedicated to the mall, you’ll find an automated ticket booth and an elevator on the 6th floor giving you access to the Observatory T38 on the 38th floor. Before you even press the button to buy your ticket, you’re greeted by the music of Planet Scale’s “Prelude -Sound Facade-”.
Evoking an air of mystery and a cosmic atmosphere, “Prelude -Sound Facade-” strikes the perfect note of intrigue, preparing you for the experience that awaits. After purchasing your ticket and stepping into the elevator, you’re treated to Planet Scale’s “Interlude -Duo-”, a livelier and more uplifting ambient tune. As you’re whisked up 14 floors above office spaces and another 14 floors occupied by JR Tower’s Hotel Nikko Sapporo, you finally arrive at the 38th-floor observation deck.
Depending on the time of day, anytime before sunset, you’ll hear Planet Scale’s “Romance -Light and Shadows-” as you take in the completely unobstructed northern, southern, eastern, and western views of Sapporo’s vast horizon. A mix of orchestral and electronic minimalism, based on a special planetary-based musical scale, provides the perfect soundtrack to the impressive views of fog settling on Mt. Moiwa, the state of greenery at the Botanic Garden in Hokkaidō University, the horizon-splitting JR Hakodate Line that transports most of Sapporo’s workers from places as old yet modernized as Sapporo’s Factory to little-changed locales like Furano’s farm grounds, and on a clear day, all the way to the port city of Otaru, where sake distilleries compete with tourist-friendly ski slopes.
On the south side of Observatory T38, at T’Cafe, you can take a coffee break while viewing Sapporo’s city center or at night relax alongside a glass of wine (or your fair writer’s go-to Japanese beer) as the space transforms into a bar. Along the west side, with a view of Sapporo’s Botanic Garden, you can admire Takenobu Igarashi’s ceramic relief titled Landscape and graphic designer Kenyuki Terashima’s Superimposed Sapporo Map, which overlays maps of other locales onto Sapporo’s map. Somewhere along the east wall, you’ll find popular Japanese restroom architect Junko Kobayashi’s ode to “exclusive overwhelming openness,” namely, toilets with open windows overlooking Furano and Obihiro so that you never lose sight of the view…even when nature calls.
On the observation deck’s northside, overlooking the Sea of Japan, you’ll find the T’Shop, which sells unique items themed around the city and railways, as well as original goods featuring art pieces from JR Tower and merchandise inspired by the T38 logo. It’s there that you might find this very album—a CD full of compactly arranged and remixed versions of the music you’ve just heard while trying to wrap your head around the beauty and expanse of Sapporo.
This Music for an Observatory Symphonic Scenes was created by composer Seiichi Hoshino, a graduate of Tokyo University of the Arts and the Juilliard School, whose career spans jazz composition, dance scores, and TV soundtracks, in collaboration with sound designer Kazuo Nogawa, who specializes in crafting live soundscapes for places like Japan’s National Museum of Nature and Science, Kushiro’s Akan Kohan Eco-Museum Center, and various healing CD-ROMs. Together, as Planet Scale, they composed pieces like “Passacaglia -A Starry Night-”, which transforms the entire atmosphere of the observation deck when you visit in the evening to take in Sapporo’s city lights. In it you hear a bit of the influences I sense — those of the music of Gavin Bryars, Philip Glass, and new minimalism — stake a case for the old Ainu settlement.
So, what compels someone to buy this memento before you exit through the gift shop? I’d say it’s music that puts you right back where it originated. But I’ll leave it to the kind folks at JR Hokkaidō to explain it best:
What is the “Planetary Music” Environmental Production at 160 meters above ground?
From the JR Tower Observation Deck T38, you can take in the orderly cityscape of Sapporo, as well as distant views of Mount Yubari and Otaru Port. It’s a space where you can truly feel the earth and sky. The dynamic transitions of the evening scenery and the star-filled night sky at night will welcome visitors.
In this setting, from the 6th-floor entrance of T38, within the shuttle elevator, and on the 38th-floor observation deck, music created from a special scale called the “Planetary Scale” is played.
The “Planetary Scale” was discovered by ancient European thinkers and scientists (such as Pythagoras and Kepler) who believed that the positions and movements of the planets in the solar system could be explained through musical intervals. The sun, moon, Mars, Venus, and Saturn each have unique pitches assigned to them according to their positions and movements, and this “Planetary Scale” has been known since ancient times.
The music at T38 is based on this Planetary Scale and is composed with a grand, symphonic feel. It has a broad and somewhat mysterious sound that is different from music created with the modern do-re-mi-fa-so-la-ti scale. While connecting with the dreams of ancient people who imagined music in the cosmos, you can enjoy the vast scenery from the observation deck.
The tracks included on this CD are compactly arranged and remixed versions of the Planetary Music from T38. Enjoy the sound from 160 meters above ground as ambient music in your room.