Sophia Coppola’s ‘Lost In Translation’ was one of the biggest cinematic highlights of 2003, its sense of compelling atmosphere driven as equally by its vivid evocation of Tokyo as it was by career highlight performances by leading co-stars Scarlet Johansson and Bill Murray. In particular, ‘Lost In Translation’ was a filmic triumph because it managed to capture poetically the sense of isolation and vulnerability felt by two very different people whose lives might have never crossed, but for a brief stay in this strangely disorienting and somewhat alien terrain.

Soundtrack albums by their very nature are often problematic exercises – for every well considered and constructed cinematic score out there on the shelves, there seems to be a veritable mountain of cynical marketing exercises out there piling ten big-selling names (as well as a couple that could use the visibility) onto a silver disc and selling it as a soundtrack, even if said tracks only flit across the screen in a few seconds.

Mind you, when dealing with a Sofia Coppola soundtrack project, all fears of this being a thrown together affair evaporate fairly swiftly – this is the same director whose debut film ‘The Virgin Suicides’ came accompanied by a soundtrack performed by Air that was so good, it almost eclipsed their unevenly-received ‘10,000 Hz Legend’ of the same year.

‘Lost In Translation’ is easily as good, if not better – rather than being a single artist score, this time it’s instead an impeccably well-chosen collection of tracks that soundtrack the film from a diverse range of artists including the aforementioned Air, Squarepusher, The Jesus and Mary Chain and former My Bloody Valentine helmsman Kevin Shields. In fact it’s the presence of Shields on no less than four tracks here (five if you count MBV’s ‘Sometimes’ – also included here) that should raise a few eyebrows from the very start.

Although he’s been comparatively visible in recent years, remixing Primal Scream’s ‘If They Move, Kill ‘Em’ and touring as part of their stable live lineup, Shields has made a virtual career out of not following up 1991’s rapturously received ‘LoveLess’, and these tracks mark his first released solo output in almost thirteen years. Opening with a brief intro swirl of ambient sound sourced from Tokyo collaging together fragments of J-Pop divas, shop announcements and passing cars, proceedings slide smoothly into Kevin Shields ‘City Girl’, the ostensible ‘standout radio track’ on this collection.

A bittersweet shoegazer track in the vein of classic MBV or even later-period Sonic Youth, while it isn’t exactly the return of God himself, in 3.48 it perfectly sums up why the pop landscape is much better off for the end of this self-imposed hiatus. Shields also contributes 3 other instrumental score tracks here including the mournful and elegiac ‘Goodbye’ which blends stretched out guitar string harmonics with glacial keyboard tones and ‘Ikebana’, which almost comes on late-80s U2 with Shields’ slow guitar figure tracing an almost Edge-like slow pattern over a synth drone backdrop. ‘Are You Awake?’ by comparison is a more upbeat melding of thin TB-303 hi-hats, propulsive bass guitar and echoing keyboards – while all these tracks are evocative of the atmosphere generated by the film, they’re designed to work here as segues rather than divert attention too much from the whole.

France’s Sebastien Tellier contributes ‘Fantino’, a melancholy instrumental piece that melds mournful organ tones and synths with slowly strummed acoustic guitar, Squarepusher’s ‘Tommib’ (a rare small moment of ambience on his otherwise fairly frenzied 2001 album ‘Go Plastic’) slowly cycles through almost Brian Eno-like tones, and Death In Vegas show up with ‘Girls’ – a highlight of their ‘Scorpio Rising’ album that merges breathy MBV-esque phased female vocals with fuzzed out Creation Records-era guitar and drums backing. French indie-pop outfit Phoenix’s ‘Too Young’ is pretty much perfect pop, with almost a hint of a more chilled out Strokes lurking in there, and 1970s Japanese downtempo pop outfit Happy End (who included Haruomi Hosono of Yellow Magic Orchestra / Sketchshow fame) weigh in with the sweet acoustic stylings of ‘Kaze Wo Atsumete.’

Brian Reitzell (who as well as being Air’s current tour and studio drummer also used to thrash the skins in now-defunct LA outfit Red Kross) acted as the music supervisor for Virgin Suicides as well as this soundtrack, and also contributes two score tracks here performed alongside Air / Beck live keyboardist Roger Manning Jr. ‘On The Subway’, by contrast to Shields’ hazy wistful contributions, is an icy sharp new-wave sounding track that grafts heavy-echo Pat Benatar-style drums onto Moroder-esque keyboards, and ‘Shibuya’ treads almost Boards Of Canada-like territory, with slow plangent tones layered over a droning backdrop and environmental sounds sourced from the train station of the same name. And before you think that the mothership has been left out, Air also make a single appearance with the gorgeous soft-focus instrumental ‘Alone In Kyoto’ (taken from their newly-released ‘Talkie Walkie’ album).

Deep in emotional tone and evocative of the film, ‘Lost In Translation’ manages to pull-off that rare trick that so few soundtracks manage – it actually perfectly captures the sonic and visual imprint of the movie. By turns disorienting, enveloping and lulling, it perfectly traps as an audio document the sense of jetlagged isolation depicted in the film of two people turning to each other amidst an unfamiliar landscape. Definitely one of the more thoughtfully compiled soundtrack albums to emerge from a major film studio in the past year.

Check out: www.emperornorton.com and www.lost-in-translation.com.