Katsumi Horii Project -- Skyscraper

One of my favourite areas of Tokyo is West Shinjuku since it has that spectacular grouping of skyscrapers. I used to teach a group of employees in that neighbourhood on Monday afternoons so I would usually walk among the towers including the Keio Plaza Hotel, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building (always struck me as resembling the SDF-1 from "Macross"), the Shinjuku I-Land Tower and the newest addition, the Mode Gakuen Cocoon Tower (which is the tallest structure seen in the photo although the TMG Building is taller). For that last one, though, as I was walking past it, I noticed that there were a couple of large geodesic spheres bracketing the Cocoon which had me wondering whether the architect was compensating for something.

During one of my browsings last night on YouTube, I discovered this nice and funky instrumental tune in the fusion realm called "Skyscraper". It was concocted by music master Katsumi Horii（堀井勝美）under his title of the Katsumi Horii Project as a track for one of his albums "Lovers" back in August 1993. Between 1987 and 1998, he put out 12 albums and 1 single under his project banner. "Skyscraper" has that sunny image of life in the big city, and although I think Horii was looking at New York City for his inspiration, I was just as happy to envision West Shinjuku while I was listening to the song.

According to his J-Wiki profile, he's listed as a composer, an arranger, a producer and a university lecturer who has created music for movies, TV dramas, anime, commercials and stage productions. In fact, he even provided the soundtracks for several of the "Doraemon"（ドラえもん）movie series in the early 2000s.