Belying his recent forays into stoner comedy, David Gordon Green started his career with a pair of oblique independent films: the childhood drama George Washington and the romance All the Real Girls. My viewings of these films had several prompts: recently catching up on Terrence Malick’s first two films (1973’s Badlands and the 1978 stunner Days of Heaven), both of which cast heavy shadows on Green’s work; former Parks and Recreation cast member Paul Schneider’s appearance in both films and co-writing credit for the latter; and the lingering suspicion that the lovely cinematography of Pineapple Express should be seen in its natural habitat. Such curiosity paid off; both films have stuck with me, particularly the inexperienced cast of child actors in George Washington and the worn-in relationship between Schneider and a young Zooey Deschanel in All the Real Girls. Tim Orr’s cinematography guides both films, most notably during a pair of lengthy montages ending their respective second acts. It’s here that Green’s visual storytelling shines brightest.

Those montages are not purely visual, as you might suspect, but they’re not the ham-fisted musical montages skewered by South Park. I immediately recognized the music of the passage in All the Real Girls as the Mogwai remix of “Mogwai Fear Satan” from Kicking a Dead Pig, but the strangely familiar ambient soundscape accompanying the passage in George Washington made me rush to IMDB for the credit. Sure enough, Stars of the Lid was somehow involved. Brian McBride’s side band The Pilot Ships contributed “Pilot Suicide Theory” from its 2000 LP The Limits of Painting and Poetry to George Washington’s soundtrack, and its backwards drones capture the range of emotions swirling around in the film. To Green’s credit, that’s no easy task.

Between “Pilot Suicide Theory” and McBride’s recent score for the documentary Vanishing of the Bees, I found myself wondering why contemporary ambient music hasn’t found its way onto more film scores. (Full disclosure: I rented The Lovely Bones because of Brian Eno’s soundtrack, but not even the use of “The Big Ship” over its closing credits could align the tonal mess which preceded it. Avoid.) Matt McCormick’s debut film Some Days Are Better Than Others had a head-start to finding its score from Eluvium’s Matthew Cooper, since it stars two notable indie rockers: Carrie Brownstein from Sleater-Kinney, Wild Flag, and the IFC sketch comedy show Portlandia, and James Mercer of The Shins and Broken Bells. The film is currently making the rounds at festivals and limited-run screenings, while Cooper’s score is now available on Temporary Residence.

Given the variety of sounds Cooper has delivered in Eluvium’s discography—the woozy drones of Lambient Material, the solo piano of An Accidental Memory in the Case of Death, the symphonic swells of Copia, the Eno-esque vocals of Similes—his score for Some Days could have gone in any number of directions. Picking up on the film’s thematic exploration of throwaway culture, Cooper opted to record the soundtrack with broken/malfunctioning keyboards, a decision which establishes the score’s aesthetic. There’s a playfulness to tracks like “Drifting” and “Worry and Care” that suggests both a church organ and a run-down carnival. Cooper manages to hit the droning palette of his early records on “Into Dust” and the tinkling, heavily backmasked “Pursuance.”

The best pieces on Some Days recall the interwoven layers of Eluvium’s finest work, 2005’s Talk Amongst the Trees. “Reprieve” carefully balances delicate details and thick blocks of keyboards. The title track starts with that curious carnival organ, but like Talk’s astounding highlight “New Animals from the Air,” keeps adding counterpoint melodies and textures. By the end of the song, the organ has disappeared and the tone has changed dramatically, but when exactly that happens is difficult to ascertain.

Cooper works best in these long pieces, since the shorter interstitials often lack depth. Not having seen the film, I can’t say if the church organ melodies of “It’s Never What It Seems” and “What You Leave Behind” are the perfect accompaniments for their respective scenes, but on record they’re gone too soon and don’t leave much of an impression. This issue made much of Cooper’s 2008 "solo album" Miniatures a fans-only concern, so perhaps he should stick to his stage name.

I hope that the film Some Days Are Better Than Others gives the song “Some Days Are Better Than Others” a fittingly evocative context. It’s the centerpiece of the soundtrack, much like “Pilot Suicide Theory” and “Mogwai Fear Satan (Mogwai Remix)” anchored George Washington and All the Real Girls respectively. It’s an excellent gateway to Matthew Cooper’s work, the best of which comes under the Eluvium banner, so if you’ve seen the film and liked what you heard, start there and then circle back to this soundtrack.