Various Artists

Slinky and portentous, Broken Flowersis a mood piece of an album, giving sonic shape to the existential crisis facing the lonely Lothario (Bill Murray) at the center of Jim Jarmusch's new movie. The disc casts a spell from note one -- the Greenhornes' "There Is an End," featuring a coolly lovelorn Holly Golightly -- and the intrigue consistently builds, thanks to Ethiopian jazz great Mulatu Astatke's spy-flickish instrumentals, Marvin Gaye's witchy and expansive "I Want You," and Golightly's spectral cover of the Kinks' "Tell Me Now So I Know." The reverie is broken only twice: by metal dirge purveyors Sleep and by Brian Jonestown Massacre, whose hipster rock is too shrewd for such an effortlessly cool CD. -- Kristina Feliciano

Related Content

• The Bleached-Blonde Carjackers, Gangsta John Waters, and God
  November 11, 2011
• Ten Songs Sexy Enough to Get a Lady Pregnant
  July 6, 2011
• Meek's Cutoff: fractured trust in 19th-century Oregon
  May 26, 2011
• No Wave Riche
  June 23, 2011
• Robin Thicke Talks Double-Digit Orgasms, Baby-Making Music, and NYE in Miami
  December 30, 2011

More About

• Holly Golightly
• Jim Jarmusch
• Bill Murray
• Soul Music
• Movie Stars