Track Listing

1. Intro/Tokyo
2. City Girl - Kevin Shields
3. Fantino - Sebastian Tellier
4. Tommib - Squarepusher
5. Girls - Death In Vegas
6. Goodbye - Kevin Shields
7. Too Young - Phoenix
8. Kaze Wo Atsumete - Happy End
9. On The Subway - Brian Reitzell & Roger J Manning Jr
10. Ikebana - Kevin Shields
11. Sometimes - My Bloody Valentine
12. Alone In Kyoto - Air
13. Shibuya - Brian Reitzell & Roger J Manning Jr
14. Are You Awake? - Kevin Shields
15. Just Like Honey - The Jesus & Mary Chain

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #8477 in Music
• Released on: 2004-02-09
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: Soundtrack
• Original language: English, French, German, Japanese
• Dimensions: .23 pounds
• Running time: 102 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
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 to 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 in a midlife crisis) and Scarlet Johansson (as an emotionally marooned twentysomething). It also provides a safe, warm envelope in which they can enact their overseas adventures. Working with producer Brian Reitzell, 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 US 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

Customer Reviews

Marvellously atmospheric
LOST IN TRANSLATION cuts loose from the 'all-too-usual' selection of MOR dross found in so many soundtracks these days. This CD contains a selection of mood pieces that helped made the film so memorable but is also an enjoyable 'late night' listen that stands up as a superb piece of work in its own right.
If moody indie sounds and atmospheric electronica are your cup of tea, then this is definitely for you......oh and do yourself a favour and see the film, it's superb!

Lost in the cool feeling
This captures the feeling in the film perfectly, and the film captured a feeling from life quite well- its like a wander into the zone of drifting through the complex and crazy world, yet somehow feeling good and elevated about not knowing where you're really heading because there is beauty and excitement to be experianced from a subtle view point. Its more than worth getting just for the Kevin Shields references, although all his contibutions are probably what see it through. City Girl does not disappoint, and I recall hearing it in the film and thinking how amazing it sounded. The MBV track 'Sometimes' sounds extra amazing in the context of this album. Other tracks all have merits, even the slightly cheezy 'Pheonix' (TOO YOUNG) works really well in the context. the DIvegas track sounds amazing here too- Its all working really well- if you enjoyed any music in the film, you'll love this.

excellent stand-alone soundtrack.
Since picking up a copy last week, I’ve actually been very impressed by this soundtrack, particularly the pieces by Kevin Shields (the sole reason I purchased the disc). There’s an admirable continuity to the album, and it does a remarkable job of evoking the romantic melancholy of Coppola’s film. Certain songs perhaps grate a little, but there’s nothing truly offensive or irritating on this disc. In fact, it’s a marvellously serene album to have playing in the background whilst working, I’ve found. (only the rather weak Phoenix song seems slightly out of place amongst all of the lush instrumental pieces)

I’ve been a little surprised at some of the criticism I’ve read of the Shields’ pieces, though. These are merely score pieces, written under the direction of Sofia Coppola and Brian Reitzell – and it’s ridiculous to approach these four pieces expecting another ‘Soon’ or ‘To Here Knows When’. The purpose of these songs is to accompany images, not to overshadow them – and assessed on those terms, I think that Kevin’s contributions are excellent. Having said that, however, the four songs he contributes are still strong enough to stand on their own as individual pieces. (If you are nostalgic for MBV’s screaming guitars, then seek out the stunning six-minute piece that Shields wrote for the LaLaLa Human Steps production ‘2’ in the mid-90s instead.)

His first song on this soundtrack, ‘City Girl’ is about the simple, rapt gaze of infatuation and has really grown on me over the last few days. It sounds quite similar to the MBV songs ‘Sugar’ and ‘Cupid Come’, and its fractured melody begins to make a great deal of sense on the second or third listen. It’s also wonderful to hear Kevin’s voice again. ‘Goodbye’ is perhaps the strongest of the four pieces – a gorgeous ambient piece that unfolds gently and tenderly over two-and-a-half minutes, and displays more feeling and invention during that time than almost anything else I’ve heard all year. ‘Are You Awake?’ is similarly impressive and does an excellent job of capturing all the wonder and disorientation of late-night Tokyo. ‘Ikebana’ is probably the most immediate, but also the most disposable, of the four pieces – yet still merits inspection.

The rest of the disc is something of a mixed bag. ‘Just Like Honey’ (Jesus and Mary Chain) and ‘Sometimes’(MBV) tower above everything else on this disc, including Shields’ new pieces, and most of the tracks are actually pretty uninteresting, in all honesty – effective in the film but slightly tiresome when on their own. The Air and Squarepusher contributions are pleasant enough, as are the Brian Reitzell pieces – but ‘Girls’ by Death in Vegas, for instance, is a depressingly one-dimensional attempt to mimic ‘Loveless’-era Shields, and merely makes you realise just how remarkable My Bloody Valentine were at their peak.

Overall, though, this is an excellent soundtrack – rich and varied, and containing impressive new material from Kevin Shields.