VA - Lost In Translation - Original Soundtrack (2004)

The soundtrack to Sofia Coppola's Lost In Translation features exclusive music from Kevin Shields (of My Bloody Valentine) and Air -- plus classic tracks from the Jesus & Mary Chain, Death In Vegas, My Bloody Valentine and Squarepusher.

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Sofia Coppola has, with two elegant movies, proved herself a talented director with a keen eye for interior life. She's also got great ears. For Lost in Translation, the story of a May-December friendship in Tokyo between two displaced Americans, the score is a tonic for jetlag. Coppola prescribes a dose of shoegazer pop, from My Bloody Valentine's chiming "Sometimes" to Jesus & Mary Chain's fuzzed-out "Just Like Honey." The music nails the hazy conscious state of actors Bill Murray (as a movie star with a midlife crisis) and Scarlet Johansson (as an emotionally marooned twenty-something). It also provides a safe, warm envelope in which they can enact their overseas adventures. Working with producer Brian Reitzell, whose band Air scored her previous Virgin Suicides, Coppola lured Valentine's Kevin Shields into providing several slices of dreamy indie-rock and sonic wallpaper, as stylish as it is formless. There's a welcome bit of Japanese goofiness, a funhouse-mirror reflection of U.S. folk-rock courtesy of early-1970s band Happy End. And a "hidden" track provides the audio of Murray, in the film, doing his sleepy karaoke version of Roxy Music's "More Than This." --Marc Weidenbaum

1. No Artist – Intro / Tokyo (00:34)
2. Kevin Shields – City Girl (03:48)
3. Sebastien Tellier – Fantino (03:13)
4. Squarepusher – Tommib (01:21)
5. Death In Vegas – Girls (04:27)
6. Kevin Shields – Goodbye (02:32)
7. Phoenix – Too Young (03:19)
8. Happy End – Kaze Wo Atsumete (04:07)
9. Brian Reitzell & Roger J. Manning Jr. – On The Subway (01:10)
10. Kevin Shields – Ikebana (01:38)
11. My Bloody Valentine – Sometimes (05:19)
12. AIR – Alone In Kyoto (04:48)
13. Brian Reitzell & Roger J. Manning Jr. – Shibuya (03:27)
14. Kevin Shields – Are You Awake? (01:35)
15a. The Jesus & Mary Chain – Just Like Honey (12:38)
15b. Bill Murray With Roger Joseph Manning Jr. & Brian Reitzell – More Than This