Pitchfork

It has been nearly nine years since the U. S. Congress voted to revise and re-imagine the Telecommunications Act of 1934: in 1996-- in a supposed show of support for capitalism and free competition-- Congress (operating under then-President Bill Clinton) effectively eliminated rules restricting the sizes of the companies owning and operating media outlets. Consequently, a freshly deregulated American radio somersaulted through a period of massive and unchecked consolidation, quickly and severely limiting options for helpless consumers. Check it: In the past 10 years, corporate leviathan Clear Channel has gone from owning and operating 25 radio stations to commanding a stifling 1,200-- unsurprisingly, all this skybox-intervention has resulted in one-page playlists, unilateral censorship, and the disintegration of the DJ-as-unique-personality (see, instead, piles of middle-aged men with stupid names hollering obnoxious nonsense into giant microphones). Now, we drag duffel bags of CDs into our cars, buy adapters for our iPods, and think about radio stations the same way we think about Viacom: with disgust.

Unfortunately, deregulation-in-favor-of-competition is hardly a phenomenon that's unique to radio (nor is it inherently destructive); likewise, the dourness of contemporary radio is not entirely Clear Channel's fault. Ultimately, Clear Channel was simply the first corporate entity to pounce on an ample opportunity to make more cash by buying up every satellite in sight, acting on perfectly common-- if vaguely depressing-- capitalist itches.

Given all this, the continuing prominence of the Santa Monica-based public broadcasting station KCRW, a community service of Santa Monica College, seems even more imperative. Long considered one of the nation's most universally-acclaimed public radio stations-- offering slices of NPR and PRI's programming as well as plenty of locally-grown news and music shows-- KCRW is to the West Coast what WFMU is to the East: a reliable, intensely non-commercial forum for new and emerging talent, determined wholly independently of major label marketing dollars. The results are impressive: KCRW music director Nic Harcourt, host of the station's celebrated weekday morning spot, "Morning Becomes Eclectic", can take at least partial responsibility for the stateside "breaking" of previously un-backed artists like Sigur Rós, Coldplay, Norah Jones, Dido, and David Gray. (Harcourt credits at least some of his influence to the impossibly car-bound Los Angeles record execs that comprise much of his audience.)

Each week, 15 hours of "Morning Becomes Eclectic" is condensed into a two-hour best-of, pithily dubbed "Sounds Eclectic". This nationally syndicated wrap-up, also hosted by Harcourt, features the week's best live performance and interview, as well as a mix of the show's trademark "eclectic" tracks. "Sounds Eclectic"'s latest promotional compilation, Sounds Eclectic 3" (which is available for purchase on KCRW's website-- all proceeds directly support the station's music programming), collects the show's best live tracks from 2002 and 2003, and features an impressive lineup, including Interpol's "Untitled", Iron & Wine's cover of the Flaming Lips' "Waiting for A Superman", Steve Earle's "Jerusalem", Franz Ferdinand's "Take Me Out", Radiohead's "Go to Sleep", and My Morning Jacket's "One Big Holiday", among others.

All of the performances were recorded directly to two-track digital audio tape, and none have been re-recorded, remixed, or overdubbed, thus preserving all the awkward intimacy of performing rock songs in a radio studio at 10:30 a.m. To this end, the Flaming Lips offer a dawdling, piano-led version of "Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, Pt. 1", in which vocalist Wayne Coyne, mewing careful and soft, manages to sound approximately 11 years old. Given the undeniable intimacy of KCRW's format (and Coyne's child-nightmare lyrics), that pre-adolescent whining becomes oddly, staggeringly appropriate, and "Yoshimi" is instantly transcendent-- as chilling as it is charming.

My Morning Jacket's live version of "One Big Holiday" is equally impressive, their guitar bonanza even more spectacular when captured live, and so palpably ecstatic that you can almost see the hair lassos swinging. The Polyphonic Spree's "It's the Sun" booms in full, multi-voiced, psychedelic glory. Welsh songstress Jem coos the dulcet "Flying High" over tender acoustic strums (Jem's subsequent record deal with ATO is generally considered a direct result of Harcourt's airplay), murmuring plaintively, each breath captured with impeccable fidelity, making it sound like Jem is curled up in your armchair.

The tragic flaw of Sounds Eclectic 3 is that the eclecticism so staunchly implied in the title never actually reveals itself on the compilation: The artists included are (by now) relatively well-known acts, and the comp's curators failed to slip in any of the weird, demo-only discoveries that contributed to "Morning Becomes Eclectic"'s renown. The bands included are mostly white, from either North America or the UK (save Mexico's Kinky, whose fantastic "Mirando De Lado" is an immediate standout), and play quirky variations of radio-friendly pop, folk, and rock. No matter how compelling some of the performances may be, there's not much here to make you sprint off to the record store. (Remember: It has been two to three years since these songs were recorded, and the laws of trickle-down indienomics totally point to your dad being way into Franz Ferdinand right now.) Still, Sounds Eclectic 3 features interesting, extremely well-recorded live cuts, and the price of the disc-- essentially just a small donation to support public broadcasting-- is more than worth it.

Last October, incomparable Radio 1 DJ John Peel (posthumously celebrated in Britain's The Observer by former Pulp frontman Jarvis Cocker, who wondered: "To have your own radio show and play just what you like! To communicate with the audience just as if you were talking to a friend. What a simple idea! How obvious! So how come no one else is doing it?") died in Peru, reminding everyone what radio could (and should) be, and, sadly, how bad it has become. Sounds Eclectic 3 may seem a little predictable in 2005, but Harcourt and KCRW are still undoubtedly precious commodities.