Cooder does a lot with just a very few notes. With some drony noises in the background, he'll draw out some tones with a slide on an acoustic guitar, letting them hang and then switching to some harp-like plucked notes.

This how the main theme goes, as well as, well, the rest of it. There are some slight variations but that's the general idea.

"Canción Mixteca" departs from this for the conventions of Mexican folk music and "No Safety Zone" has an eerie middle section that sounds like it might involve prepared piano and musique concrète.

There's a gesture in a direction of a more straightforward Americana sound in "Houston in Two Seconds" and "She's Leaving the Bank" but mostly it sticks to something like the establishing themes.

Despite being so spare and repeating itself so much, it's not boring at all. It has a hypnotic pull and a quiet intensity. Perhaps the movie has this for a lot of people, but not for me.

Fans of Loren Mazzacane Connors would like this record.

The track "I Knew These People" includes dialogue from the movie.