KGSR Broadcasts Vol. 19

KGSR Broadcasts Vol. 19

Incredibly, Broadcasts just gets better. After the departure of the series' founding producer, KGSR programmer, ideologue, and deejay Jody Denberg, the local station's 2-CD annual fundraiser for the SIMS Foundation wobbled almost imperceptibly. With Andy Langer at the helm, Broadcasts Vol. 19 opens with a bang (Band of Horses' "Laredo") and looks only forward from there (Foster the People's stripped "Pumped Up Kicks") until it winds down 39 tracks later with Jimmie Vaughan twanging it local-like on "Comin' & Goin'." Any year assembles its soundtrack arbitrarily, yet tag-teaming the like-minded (Raphael Saadiq's "Stone Rollin'" into Fitz & the Tantrums' "MoneyGrabber," both encored to gritty perfection by Ryan Bingham and Mumford & Sons), KGSR again proves an astute prognosticator of annual currents and a reliable guide. Plus, any record producer will tell you that lady luck was involved in most successful orchestrations, and many moments prove magic: Sam Beam's coolly breathtaking "Tree by the River," Charlie Mars' "Mississippi" drawl, and Dawes doing Fleet Foxes one better ("If I Wanted Someone"). Back-to-backs are dead-on – Joe Ely's "Me & Billy the Kid" paired with Hayes Carll's "KMAG YOYO" – and surprises are ripe (Cold War Kids' "Louder Than Ever"). Grace Potter needs to dial it down, and Lissie as well, but the locals (Nakia, Quiet Company) fit right in. Black Joe Lewis & the Honeybears' "Booty City," which at its Austin City Limits taping in June nearly set off the sprinklers, only hints at that night here ending the first CD, but Steve Earle setting up Willie Nelson's blue "Valentine" at the close of the second disc makes mixtape nirvana. Sequencing even camouflages the dips in the road (Guster/Scars on 45/Sara Bareilles). Bob Schneider and Sarah Jarosz: the king and queen of the prom. Broadcasts Vol. 19, audio yearbook Austin, 2011. Westside.