Record Rack

** Various artists, “Morning Becomes Eclectic: Selected On-Air Performances From the Legendary KCRW Studios,” Mammoth. The fifth in the series formerly known as “Rare on Air,” this 17-track collection is culled from creative music director Nic Harcourt’s first year hosting the public radio station’s signature program. High-quality production values aside, it’s a very mixed bag of cool quirks (Scottish artist John Martyn doing Portishead’s trip-hop ballad “Glory Box” as modern jazz-blues), simple pleasures (Lyle Lovett’s solo-acoustic “Bears”) and too much warbling (Beth Orton, Air, Sixpence None the Richer and Pink Martini, all blown away by Angelique Kidjo’s rich a cappella “Blewu”). Harcourt may be making a case for diversity by including pop acts along with fringier artists, but bland tracks by Semisonic, Mercury Rev and Cake are wasted space that dilute the album’s impact.

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Albums are rated on a scale of one star (poor), two stars (fair), three stars (good) and four stars (excellent). The albums are already released unless otherwise noted.