You are thinking maybe you don't like compilations so much, and you are probably justified in thinking this. There's not, you are saying, a comp in the history of music which has gone down as timeless and legendary. You are thinking that comps like this one are inherently flawed, only as good as their three worst songs, and inevitably comprised of leftovers and half-assed toss-offs.

And you are right. You are right about the other comps out there, and frankly, you are right about this one, too. Mostly. Except for one thing. It honestly doesn't matter what the songs on this disc sound like. This disc could be a third generation copy of Einstürzende Neubauten's Haus der Luege played backwards through a cardboard tube and it wouldn't matter. It could be an anthology of all the acceptance speeches from the Source Awards and I would tell you to buy three copies and give two away.

Why? Because Alternative Radio is important, and like most organizations doing important things, they are also poor. If you buy this disc, they will be a little less poor-- or so I am led to believe-- and this would be a good thing.

Briefly: Alternative Radio is a weekly one-hour program originating in Boulder, Colorado which allows some measure of uncensored air-time to individuals who find themselves spitting into the void of corporate media. Programs include recorded lectures, round-table-type discussions, and conversations between founder David Barsamian and various artists, activists and intellectuals-- people like Noam Chomsky, Ralph Nader, Angela Davis, Ed Dorn and Cornel West.

AR is totally self-funded and beholden to nobody; content is not dumbed-down or screened for fear of losing advertising dollars or network support. The result is one of the few media outlets in existence which presents uninterrupted and unskewed programming featuring ideas existing on or near the fringe of world politics. The views expressed vary from the deeply incisive to the paranoid and sensationalistic (sometimes in the same hour, exempli gratia last week's lecture on genetic engineering by Jeremy Rifkin). But the beauty of Alternative Radio is that nothing is quoted, extracted, or taken out of context: it's all right there, and you can listen and form your own opinions.

As for this disc, it's pretty good. It offers a handful of unreleased studio tracks and a bunch of otherwise unavailable live recordings from the likes of Elliot Sharp, the Olivia Tremor Control, Windy and Carl, and Negativland. Keep Left's selection seems to represent-- at least to some extent-- the taste of Barsamian and his AR cohorts Tonya Loendorf and Joe Richey, which evidently tends toward the atmospheric, and away from the rocking. However, most of these tracks seem somehow appropriate to AR's oeuvre, whether obviously so (as in the case of Negativland), or because so many of them were recorded or mixed at the respective artist's home, outside of certain spheres of influence.

Two tracks, in particular, make this a worthwhile purchase: Kronos Quartet contributes a just plain staggering live recording of Rahul Dev Burman's "Tonight is the Night," and Pere Ubu gives us a 1991 recording of "Petrified" (originally from Son of the Bailing Man) which kicks off with a 10-minute rant concerning David Thomas' feelings about dinosaurs. Other bright spots include South's "Settled Room" and Physics' techno-hippie-via-Steve-Reich jam, "Comparisons of Valid Options."

Of course, like so many of its ilk, this disc has its share of ho-hum tunes. The Friends of Dean Martinez, for example, turn in a completely listenable song, but one that completely fails to distinguish itself from their other work. Marianne Nowottny shows up with a track that I found fascinating-- like staring at a car wreck-- but could not, in good conscience, recommend to others. It sounds like Tori Amos covering a Happy Rhodes song arranged by John Cage. But the disc's biggest disappointment, unbelievably enough, comes from Built to Spill, who offer a throwaway, crappily recorded instrumental.

Still, there's a lot of good, unavailable stuff on Keep Left, and on the merits of the music alone, it's well worth picking up. Factor in the cause and it becomes a must-buy.

-Zach Hooker