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A 24-hour recording of RNZ National. The following rundown is sourced from the broadcaster’s website. Note some overseas/copyright restricted items may not appear in the supplied rundown:
17 May 2016
===12:04 AM. | All Night Programme===
=DESCRIPTION=
Including: 12:05 Music after Midnight; 12:30 Spectrum (RNZ); 1:05 From the World (BBC); 2:05 New Jazz Archive (PRX) 3:05 The Tree by Robin McFarland read by Byron Coll (2 of 2, RNZ); 3:30 An Author's View (RNZ); 5:10 Witness (BBC)
===6:00 AM. | Morning Report===
=DESCRIPTION=
RNZ's three-hour breakfast news show with news and interviews, bulletins on the hour and half-hour, including: 6:16 and 6:50 Business News 6:18 Pacific News 6:26 Rural News 6:48 and 7:45 NZ Newspapers
=AUDIO=
06:00
Top Stories for Tuesday 17 May 2016
BODY:
We ask the Ministry of Social Development what it can actually do to help those forced to live in garages and cars and a homicide investigation is underway into the death of the woman whose body was found near the Rakaia river.
Topics:
Regions:
Tags:
Duration: 36'37"
06:06
Sports News for 17 May 2016
BODY:
An update from the team at RNZ Sport.
Topics: sport
Regions:
Tags:
Duration: 2'11"
06:17
GPs hope for Budget funds to improve sector sustainability
BODY:
Family doctors say millions of dollars in extra government funding are needed to ensure GP fees remain affordable.
Topics: health
Regions:
Tags: fees, doctors
Duration: 55"
06:22
Early Business News for 17 May 2016
BODY:
A brief update of movements in the financial sector.
Topics: business, economy
Regions:
Tags: markets
Duration: 2'10"
06:26
Morning Rural News for 17 May 2016
BODY:
News from the rural and farming sectors.
Topics: rural, farming
Regions:
Tags:
Duration: 4'08"
06:38
Measles continues to spread in the Waikato
BODY:
The Waikato Medical Officer of Health is advising all schools in the region to start looking at students' vaccination records, as measles continues to spread.
Topics: health
Regions: Waikato
Tags: measles
Duration: 3'54"
06:46
Fiji's historic Levuka needs help after Winston
BODY:
Business people and heritage workers in Fiji's UNESCO world heritage site of Levuka say the historic town and its people need help after Cyclone Winston.
Topics: Pacific
Regions:
Tags: Fiji, Levuka
Duration: 3'29"
06:50
Capacity constraints for the economy?
BODY:
There's a warning the economy could be on the cusp of experiencing capacity constraints if both the manufacturing and services sectors continue to expand at such a strong pace.
Topics: business, economy
Regions:
Tags: manufacturing, services sectors
Duration: 1'55"
06:52
Kiwi Property has ambitious plans
BODY:
The country's largest shopping mall owner has ambitious plans to transform Auckland's Sylvia Park - the jewel in its crown - from a mall into a town centre, as early this year.
Topics: business
Regions: Auckland Region
Tags: Kiwi Property
Duration: 1'45"
06:54
NZ start-up seeing rapid growth: expansion plans underway
BODY:
A New Zealand start-up business, Latipay, says it's new payments service running on China's e-commerce sites, Alibaba and WeChat, will make it much easier for New Zealand exporters to make sales online.
Topics: business
Regions:
Tags: Latipay
Duration: 1'56"
06:56
Sunscreen manufacturer looks to raise funds for expansion
BODY:
A New Zealand sunscreen manufacturer, Skin Alive, is looking to raise nearly half a million dollars in capital to fund international expansion.
Topics: business
Regions:
Tags: Skin Alive
Duration: 1'54"
06:58
Morning markets for 17 May 2016
BODY:
Wall Street tracking higher after a rise in Apple shares and gains in oil prices.
Topics: business, economy
Regions:
Tags: markets
Duration: 53"
07:07
Sports News for 17 May 2016
BODY:
An update from the team at RNZ Sport.
Topics: sport
Regions:
Tags:
Duration: 2'44"
07:15
Key: Social nets in place for New Zealanders in hardship
BODY:
Yesterday on Morning Report we questioned the Prime Minister about what help is in place for those families sleeping in cars, garages and shipping containers.
Topics: housing
Regions:
Tags: homeless, WINZ
Duration: 9'01"
07:24
Another Wicked Campers van banned
BODY:
Another Wicked Campers van has been ordered off the road by the chief censor.
Topics: law, business
Regions:
Tags: Wicked Campers
Duration: 4'50"
07:29
Police say woman's death in Rakaia homicide
BODY:
The police are now treating the death of a woman whose body was found on the side of a Canterbury road as a homicide.
Topics: crime
Regions: Canterbury
Tags: body, homicide
Duration: 2'22"
07:35
Concerns that people are being coerced into being vaccinated
BODY:
The Waikato Medical Officer of Health is now advising all schools in his region to start looking at students' vaccination records.
Topics: health
Regions: Waikato
Tags: measles
Duration: 6'02"
07:41
Andrew Little, says the PMr is completely out of touch
BODY:
The opposition leader, Andrew Little, says the Prime Minister is completely out of touch if he thinks families living in cars can simply go to Work and Income for help.
Topics: housing, politics
Regions:
Tags: homeless
Duration: 6'52"
07:49
Gov sceptial of Seas Around Us investigation
BODY:
The Government and the seafood industry are sceptical of a new report which claims there's been gross under-reporting of the country's commercial fish take for decades.
Topics: environment, business, politics
Regions:
Tags: fishing
Duration: 3'07"
07:52
Family doctors seek millions more for better community care
BODY:
Family doctors say millions of dollars in extra funding are urgently needed if fees are to remain affordable for patients.
Topics: health, politics
Regions:
Tags: doctors, fees
Duration: 3'45"
07:55
PIMA disgusted at 'racist' Australian league commentary
BODY:
An Australian sports journalist says a lack of education and effort from high profile commentators is to blame for butchered pronunciation of the names of Pasifika rugby league players.
Topics: sport
Regions:
Tags: names, pronunciation
Duration: 4'24"
08:07
Sports News for 17 May 2016
BODY:
An update from the team at RNZ Sport.
Topics: sport
Regions:
Tags:
Duration: 2'37"
08:11
Another Wicked Campers van forced off the road
BODY:
The Chief Censor's office has banned Wicked Campers' use of an objectionable pornographic term forcing yet another one of its vans off the road.
Topics: business, law
Regions:
Tags: Wicked Campers
Duration: 4'29"
08:16
Donald Trump's latest comments on David Cameron
BODY:
Donald Trump appears willing to walk away from the special relationship with Britain, saying it looks likely he won't have a good relationship with Prime Minister David Cameron if he becomes president.
Topics: politics
Regions:
Tags: Donald Trump, Trump
Duration: 5'34"
08:22
Recreational fishers want better monitoring
BODY:
Recreational fishermen are angry commercial interests are trying to shift the blame for overfishing in New Zealand waters their way.
Topics: business
Regions:
Tags: fishing
Duration: 5'12"
08:30
Markets Update for 17 May 2016
BODY:
A brief update of movements in the financial sector.
Topics: business, economy
Regions:
Tags: markets
Duration: 52"
08:36
NZ teenagers to be quizzed on how they cope
BODY:
Just how well equipped New Zealand teenagers are to live an increasingly connected world is going to be tested alongside how good they are at reading, maths and science.
Topics: education
Regions:
Tags: teenagers
Duration: 2'58"
08:38
Response to 'No Forced Vaccines' group
BODY:
As the number of confirmed measles cases in the Waikato continies to grow all schools in the region are being advised to start looking at students' vaccination records.
Topics: health
Regions: Waikato
Tags: measles
Duration: 5'52"
08:44
Hayne plane heads for Fiji... and Rio
BODY:
He might be Australia's Sonny BIll Willams a code hopping sports start who next move has stunned his many fans.
Topics: sport
Regions:
Tags: Jarryd Hayne
Duration: 3'42"
08:48
Ten years of sign as official language
BODY:
It's been ten years since sign became an official language but those in the deaf community say more needs to be done.
Topics: education, language
Regions:
Tags: sign language
Duration: 3'07"
08:53
Nasa gets ready for balloon lift-off - fifth time lucky?
BODY:
Nasa is once again getting ready to launch its super balloon from Wanaka Airport.
Topics: science
Regions: Otago
Tags: NASA
Duration: 3'13"
=SHOW NOTES=
===9:06 AM. | Nine To Noon===
=DESCRIPTION=
Current affairs and topics of interest, including: 10:45 The Reading: The Colour of Food: A Memoir of Life, Love and Dinner, by Anne Else read by Jane Waddell (2 of 5, RNZ)
=AUDIO=
09:09
Electricity transmission shake-up
BODY:
Electricity Authority has just released a proposal for a new Transmission Pricing Methodology. How will this affect consumers? Who are the winners and losers? Business commentator Rod Oram explains
Topics: technology, business, economy
Regions:
Tags: electricity charges, electricity
Duration: 12'59"
09:26
Professor Gail Gillon, early child literacy
BODY:
One in three children is not meeting the National Standard for reading in their first year at school, according to the Education Ministry. One in four is not meeting the standard for writing. Professor Gail Gillon from the University of Canterbury is part of a multi-disciplinary research project called A Better Start, which has been granted $34m to focus on the literacy, obesity and mental health of children in low-income communities. Professor Gillon leads the literacy part of the research and says it's all about finding a different way to reach and teach children who are at risk of literacy problems in the crucial first year of school.
Topics: education
Regions:
Tags:
Duration: 21'20"
09:50
US correspondent Steve Almond
BODY:
Steve Almond, on allegations that Facebook is censoring conservative media outlets, Donald Trump's alleged long history of sexist and degrading remarks toward women, and how ordering pizza several times a week from the same place could end up saving your life!
Topics:
Regions:
Tags: Steve Almond, US correspondent
Duration: 9'26"
10:10
US philanthropist Ed Warner on helping save black rhinos
BODY:
Ed Warner is a US philanthropist who made his fortune in pioneering hydraulic facturing - fracking - to access gas reserves in Wyoming and is now working to save critically endangered black rhinos in sub-Saharan Africa. His new book Running with Rhinos outlines his adventures with the solitary - and very dangerous - animals , as well as the people working to save them. Three out of five rhinoceros species are critically endangered because they are illegally hunted for their horns which are sold on the black market in Vietnam in China where they're perceived as having medicinal qualities.
EXTENDED BODY:
Ed Warner is a US philanthropist who made his fortune in pioneering hydraulic facturing (fracking) to access gas reserves in Wyoming, who is now working to save critically endangered black rhinos in sub-Saharan Africa.
His new book Running with Rhinos outlines his adventures with the solitary - and very dangerous - animals, as well as the people working to save them.
Three out of five rhinoceros species are critically endangered because they are illegally hunted for their horns which are sold on the black market in Vietnam in China where they're perceived as having medicinal qualities.
In South Africa alone, three or more rhino are killed illegally every day with poachers becoming more sophisticated, using veterinarians, sedatives and helicopters to hunt their lucrative prey.
Read an editied snapshot of Kathryn Ryan's conversation with Ed Warner
KR: What have we don’t the rhino population? What sorts of numbers are they down to now?
EW: About 115 years ago there were at least half a million white rhinos and black rhinos in sub-Saharan n Africa, and today we’re down to probably 15,000 – 12,000 white rhinos and 3000-5000 black rhinos
KR: Where are those populations that are still of any numbers?
EW: The best protected and largest populations are in Namibia, in South Africa, In Zimbabwe and East Africa in Kenya.
KR: Where are the markets for rhino products that have contributed to the decimation of their numbers?
EW: Follow the money – rhino horn is valued by Asians, primarily Chinese and Vietnamese. To such an amount that there’s rhino horn that is actually traded for more than gold…. It’s absurd by the way, rhino horn is something like a cross between our fingernails and your hair, it’s Keratin, that's all it is. It has no medicine qualities whatsoever, this is a cultural problem where years and years ago - and don’t get me wrong I think Chinese medicine has a lot going for it, that there is a lot of value to it – but in this case this was a rare commodity that was added to Chinese medicine because it was rare. And when there were very very few rich Chinese it wasn’t a problem, but now there are a lot of rich Chinese it’s more of a problem.
KR: When we look at the economics driving this trade how does it work? Who are the poachers and how does the supply chain work?
EW: It’s a really interesting dilemma, I do believe that we need to incentivise native peoples so that animals are more valuable alive than dead. But when you talk about US$68,000 for a rhino horn, how can you make a rhino more valuable alive than dead?
It’s actually a really difficult problem. There are so few of them so even if you had a trophy hunting trade that raised money for conservation – the one rhino shot that I know of was put up as a donation and that went for $US340,000 – but rhino horns are going to be poached out of existence because they’re perceived to be so valuable. I think in this case education is the way. I think that we need to education the young generations of Asian [people] to love nature and the understand that they can’t ceaselessly exploit nature.
Topics: environment
Regions:
Tags: rhino, rhinooceros, black rhinos, Ed Warner, Sub-Saharan Africa, conservation
Duration: 30'10"
10:40
Book review - Sleeping Giants by Sylvain Neuvel
BODY:
Reviewed by Quentin Johnson, published by Penguin Random House (NZ).
Topics: books
Regions:
Tags:
Duration: 3'54"
11:06
Business commentator Rod Oram
BODY:
Rod Oram discusses Xero's fast growth and forecast it can get to break even without raising more capital; Comvita's strong profit growth, but sharp rise in debt & Sky TV's share price hit by a forecast loss of subscribers.
Topics: business, economy
Regions:
Tags:
Duration: 13'43"
11:20
To the Islands
BODY:
To the Islands, by Kerry Howe.
EXTENDED BODY:
To the Islands, by Kerry Howe.
Topics:
Regions:
Tags: Hauraki Gulf, To The Islands
Duration: 00"
11:21
A life-long love affair with the Hauraki Gulf
BODY:
A sketch of a house in the area by Kerry Howe A sketch by Kerry Howe Kerry grew up on the water, near Narrow Neck on the North Shore, and as well as producing many books about Pacific culture and history, has now written a book about the Hauraki Gulf. Part memoir, part history, he writes about the whole 4000 km2 seascape - from the popular inner Gulf islands, to the distant Hen and Chicken, Mokohinau and the two Barriers. Kerry talks to Kathryn about To the Islands: Exploring, remembering and imagining the Hauraki Gulf.
EXTENDED BODY:
Kerry Howe grew up on the water, near Narrow Neck on the North Shore, and as well as producing many books about Pacific culture and history, has now written a book about the Hauraki Gulf. Part memoir, part history, he writes about the whole 4000 km2 seascape - from the popular inner Gulf islands, to the distant Hen and Chicken, Mokohinau and the two Barriers.
Read an edited excerpt from the interview below:
The book is part memoir, but it’s also about the history, the culture and the politics of the Gulf, which is significant in itself. Some of this is personal. The gulf is a big part in the life of your family, in particular I’m thinking of Motutapu Island, which played a very big part in your mother’s life.
It did. Mum was what they used to call a WAAC and she was a gunner on Motutapu during WWII. She fired the mark 21, 6 inch naval guns. She didn’t say a lot about it, but I was always very conscious growing up that this is what she had done. During that time, my dad was a prisoner of war of the Germans for many years, so my mum was very worried not only of the Japanese invasion, but obviously pretty anxious about was happening to Dad, who turned up in the end after five and a half years. That sort of war experience… my generation imbibed that by osmosis so it’s always very moving when I go back there, particularly around administration bay because the barracks are still there, now used for outdoor ed. Walking around the gun emplacements, I always feel slightly dismal, but there’s another side to Motutapu, which gets me very excited, I like to go to the place where the footprints were found. Footprints of Maori in about 1400 who were standing on Motutapu watching Rangitoto emerge out of the sea in a series of eruptions. I find that a very moving place. One of my favourite anchorages is station bay on Motutapu, where there is one of the best pa sites in the Hauraki Gulf. One of my delights is to lie in the bunks and look up at the pa site towering overhead. It’s all very exciting.
These physical remnants of time and place.
Indeed. One of the things that I try to do in the book is not talk about history in any abstract sense but to lead readers to the actual places, whether it’s Maori history or colonial history, just to be there in that landscape, thinking and feeling about it. It’s what I call reading the landscape. It’s not reporting it, it’s more than that.
In what way do you experience ‘reading the landscape’ and in what way does one have to physically there, or can it be described by words? What do you mean by ‘reading the landscape’?
A lot of books on the Hauraki Gulf describe what’s there, describe in passing, ‘If you go to this place you can see that, if you go elsewhere you can see something else’. What I’ve tried to do is to convey something just beyond a description, to try and say something about what the place might mean if you know something about it. It’s the difference between identifying a word, and using that word in a sentence, that’s what I mean by reading, so there are vast numbers of places in the Gulf where you can be thinking and feeling and imagining what’s going on… I’m thinking about the copper mine in Kawau and you can get maps and things that are readily available from DOC and you can trace the outlines of various buildings, the blacksmith’s shop, the church, the school. You can obviously see the remains of the pump house, the copper mine. You can see the holes going down into the ground, you can see Whittaker’s shaft, which caused enormous political fuss, even going back to England to get it sorted out. It’s a way of being absorbed into the landscape, making some sort of sense of it.
There is a physicality to that experience, which as you say you can’t get by mere description, although you can indeed incorporate it into the way you write, but there is a physicality of the experience that goes skin deep in some ways, isn’t it? I imagine this is part of the reason why you spent so much time out in that kayak.
Well exactly. I don’t know whether I’m crazy, but I have all sorts of different feelings for different places. I go to Motuihe for example and I see the Norfolk pines, and they just thrill me because they were one of my earliest memories of the gulf. I had an uncle who worked for the Auckland Star and the Star office used to have an annual picnic every year, they used to hire ferry boats. On a couple of occasions they went down to Motutapu and there we had the most amazing fun. There were hundreds of people and we had three-legged races, egg and spoon races, men’s races and little tubs of ice cream that came out of big green canvas sacks of dried ice. These things are so vivid, at least to me when I stand and look at this place now.
Topics: environment, history, author interview
Regions:
Tags:
Duration: 23'50"
11:46
Media commentator Gavin Ellis
BODY:
Gavin Ellis discusses TV3's Maori-oriented current affairs show The Hui, how suicide is covered by New Zealand media, and NZ on Air gives a boost to multi-media regional news with grants to a number of organisations.
Topics: media
Regions:
Tags:
Duration: 13'40"
=SHOW NOTES=
09:05 Electricity transmission shake-up
The Electricity Authority has just released a proposal for a new Transmission Pricing Methodology. How will this affect consumers? Who are the winners and losers? Business commentator Rod Oram explains
09:20 Professor Gail Gillon, early child literacy
One in three children is not meeting the National Standard for reading in their first year at school, according to the Education Ministry. One in four is not meeting the standard for writing. Professor Gail Gillon from the University of Canterbury is part of a multi-disciplinary research project called A Better Start, which has been granted $34m to focus on the literacy, obesity and mental health of children in low-income communities. Professor Gillon leads the literacy part of the research and says it's all about finding a different way to reach and teach children who are at risk of literacy problems in the crucial first year of school.
09:45 US correspondent Steve Almond
Steve Almond, on allegations that Facebook is censoring conservative media outlets, and Donald Trump's alleged long history of sexist and degrading remarks toward women.
10:05 US philanthropist Ed Warner on helping save critically endangered black rhinos
Ed Warner is a US philanthropist who made his fortune in pioneering hydraulic facturing - fracking - to access gas reserves in Wyoming and is now working to save critically endangered black rhinos in sub-Saharan Africa. His new book Running with Rhinos outlines his adventures with the solitary - and very dangerous - animals , as well as the people working to save them. Three out of five rhinoceros species are critically endangered because they are illegally hunted for their horns which are sold on the black market in Vietnam in China where they're perceived as having medicinal qualities.
[gallery:2029]
10:35 Book review - Sleeping Giants by Sylvain Neuvel
reviewed by Quentin Johnson, published by Penguin Random House (NZ)
10:45 The Reading
The Colour of Food by Anne Else read by Jane Waddell (Part 2 of 5)
11:05 Business commentator Rod Oram
Rod Oram discusses Xero's fast growth and forecast it can get to break even without raising more capital; Comvita's strong profit growth, but sharp rise in debt & Sky TV's share price hit by a forecast loss of subscribers.
11:20 A life-long love affair with the Hauraki Gulf
Kerry Howe is the renowned scholar of Pacific and Polynesian History, who has had a life-long love affair with the Hauraki Gulf.
[gallery:2012]
Kerry grew up on the water, near Narrow Neck on the North Shore, and as well as producing many books about Pacific culture and history, has now written a book about the Hauraki Gulf. Part memoir, part history, he writes about the whole 4000 km2 seascape - from the popular inner Gulf islands, to the distant Hen and Chicken, Mokohinau and the two Barriers. Kerry talks to Kathryn about To the Islands: Exploring, remembering and imagining the Hauraki Gulf.
11:45 Media commentator Gavin Ellis
Gavin Ellis discusses TV3's Maori-oriented current affairs show The Hui, how suicide is covered by New Zealand media, and NZ on Air gives a boost to multi-media regional news with grants to a number of organisations.
=PLAYLIST=
Artist: Greg Johnson
Song: Liberty (swamp version)
Label: EMI
Time: 3:02
Artist: Caitlin Rose
Song: Waitin'
Album: The Stand In
Label: ATO
Time: 3:19
Artist: James Hunter
Song: Heartbreak
Album: Minute by Minute
Label: Fantasy
Time: 4:31
===Noon | Midday Report===
=DESCRIPTION=
RNZ news, followed by updates and reports until 1.00pm, including: 12:16 Business News 12:26 Sport 12:34 Rural News 12:43 Worldwatch
=AUDIO=
12:00
Midday News for 17 May 2016
BODY:
Report finds agencies are not to blame for Blessie Gotingco's murder, Queenstown high school gets a 100-thousand dollar donation following land sale.
Topics:
Regions:
Tags:
Duration: 15'35"
12:17
Westpac warning over debt
BODY:
Westpac Bank is warning New Zealanders are throwing caution to the wind by taking on too much debt.
Topics: business, economy
Regions:
Tags: debt, perosnal debt, Property Prices
Duration: 1'28"
12:22
More first home buyers dip into Kiwisaver
BODY:
The country's biggest mortgage lender, ANZ, says the amount being withdrawn from its Kiwisaver schemes by first home buyers has more than doubled in the past year.
Topics: business, economy, housing
Regions:
Tags: mortgages, KiwiSaver, first home buyers
Duration: 1'10"
12:23
Australian companies are cash hoarders
BODY:
Across the Tasman it appears Australian companies are hoarders of cash.
Topics: business, economy
Regions:
Tags: Australia
Duration: 59"
12:24
Midday Markets for 17 May 2016
BODY:
For the latest from the markets we're joined by Don Lewthwaite at First NZ Capital.
Topics: business, economy
Regions:
Tags: markets
Duration: 2'09"
12:26
Midday Sports News for 17 May 2016
BODY:
The New Zealand basketballer Steven Adams admits guarding the Gold State Warriors star Steph Curry is almost impossible for someone like him.
Topics: sport
Regions:
Tags:
Duration: 2'25"
12:35
Midday Rural News for 17 May 2016
BODY:
News from the rural and farming sectors.
Topics: rural, farming
Regions:
Tags:
Duration: 8'46"
=SHOW NOTES=
===1:06 PM. | Jesse Mulligan, 1–4pm===
=DESCRIPTION=
An upbeat mix of the curious and the compelling, ranging from the stories of the day to the great questions of our time (RNZ)
=AUDIO=
13:12
Sensitive Land Sale Approved In Exchange for Tech Donation
BODY:
A sensitive land purchase in Central Otago was green lit by the Overseas Investment Office, on the basis the foreign buyers would donate $100,000 to the local high school. David Chuang and Lim Mee Len, of Singapore, bought the Arrowtown property, with the condition the donation was paid to 'provide financial assistance or hardship allowances for students' at Wakatipu High School. It's believed the decile 10 school will use the funds to help parents buy i-pads and laptops. Wakatipu High School Foundation Chairman, Mark Taylor, explains.
Topics: education
Regions:
Tags: sensitive land purchase, sensitive land
Duration: 7'45"
13:25
NASA's Balloon Finally Takes Off In Wanaka
BODY:
Fifth time lucky and it's finally happened. NASA has finally managed to launch its super pressure balloon in Wanaka. The team has had to abort previous attempts since 1 April at Wanaka Airport. And even though it's been wild weather throughout the country, they've achieved success at last.
EXTENDED BODY:
Fifth time lucky and it's finally happened. NASA has finally managed to launch its super pressure balloon in Wanaka. The team has had to abort previous attempts since 1 April at Wanaka Airport. And even though it's been wild weather throughout the country, they've achieved success at last.
You can follow its progress here
NASA's programme chief, Debbie Fairbrother, has been monitoring the launch from the States.
Topics: science, technology
Regions:
Tags: NASA, pressure balloon, Wanaka
Duration: 9'13"
13:35
Joy Cowley on Featherston booktown
BODY:
The small town of Featherston is well on the way to becoming an official booktown and is about to host its second annual celebration. Featherson is currently on the provisional membership list for the booktown movement and has to prove it can host regular annual festivals to become an official booktown. The second of those begins this Friday, with some very big names taking part including one of the country's most successful and well known writers, Joy Cowley.
Topics: books
Regions:
Tags: booktown, Featherston
Duration: 7'45"
13:45
Favourite Album - Where have you been all my life?
BODY:
Where have you been all my life? - The Villagers.
Topics: music
Regions:
Tags:
Duration: 17'53"
14:10
Space debris causes chip in space station window
BODY:
The chip in the station's cupola window is less than a centimetre across and was most likely caused by something extremely small, like a flake of paint or a tiny piece of metal. As astronaut Tim Peake put it "glad it is quadruple glazed". Jer-Chyi Liou is the Chief science officer of NASA Orbital Debris Program, he explains why space debris remains such a big risk.
EXTENDED BODY:
The international space station's windows are made of fused-silica and borosilicate-glass, but that doesn't stop them from being vulnerable to space debris.
The chip in the station's cupola window is less than a centimetre across and was most likely caused by something extremely small, like a flake of paint or a tiny piece of metal. As astronaut Tim Peake put it "glad it is quadruple glazed"
Jer-Chyi Liou is the Chief science officer of NASA Orbital Debris Program, he explains why space debris remains such a big risk.
Topics: science, technology
Regions:
Tags: NASA, space debris, Space Station
Duration: 9'12"
14:20
Great New Zealand Album: Riverhead, by Goldenhorse
BODY:
The great New Zealand album today features one of the original members of a band whose debut album in 2002 was not only a break through for them, but for kiwi music in General. "Riverhead" not only reached Number one on our album chart, but gained the band "Goldenhorse" a certain amount of notoriety in Australia, Europe and Scandinavia. Guitarist and backing vocalist Ben King looks back on creating the album.
Topics: music
Regions:
Tags: New Zealand music, Goldenhorse
Duration: 41'04"
15:10
Joseph Mazur: The math and myth of coincidence
BODY:
Give a monkey a keyboard and eventually, it will type out a line from Shakespeare. Is a miracle or just maths? Retired mathematics professor Joseph Mazur explains how likely the unlikely really is in his latest book, Fluke: The Math and Myth of Coincidence
Topics:
Regions:
Tags: maths, probability, coincidence
Duration: 20'33"
15:45
The Panel pre-show for 17 May 2016
BODY:
Your feedback, and a preview of the guests and topics on The Panel.
Topics:
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Duration: 14'08"
21:45
Fat Science
BODY:
Auckland diabetes specialist Robyn Toomath argues that society is to blame for the rise in obesity, and Massey University sociologist and runner Andrew Dickson shares his experience of being a big athlete.
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New Zealand is the third fattest nation within the OECD. One in every three adults is obese and 10% of children are either seriously overweight or obese.
Robyn Toomath is an Auckland diabetes specialist who fronted a campaign to end the obesity epidemic for many years, until she gave up last year as a result of her frustration with the lack of action.
She has now written a book called Fat Science and tells Veronika Meduna that unless healthy food options are made more easily available, no diet or exercise, and not even surgery, will stop people from getting fatter.
Veronika also catches up with Andrew Dickson, a Massey university sociologist and long-distance runner, whose body mass index puts him in the obese category.
He describes his experience of being a big athlete and he shares his thoughts on the weight-loss industry.
Topics: science, health
Regions:
Tags: obesity, obesity epidemic, childhood obesity
Duration: 24'04"
=SHOW NOTES=
1:10 First song
1:20 Sensitive Land Sale Approved In Exchange For School Tech Donation
A sensitive land purchase in Central Otago was green lit by the Overseas Investment Office, on the basis the foreign buyers would donate $100,000 to the local high school. David Chuang and Lim Mee Len, of Singapore, bought the Arrowtown property, with the condition the donation was paid to 'provide financial assistance or hardship allowances for students' at Wakatipu High School. It's believed the decile 10 school will use the funds to help parents buy i-pads and laptops. Wakatipu High School Foundation Chairman, Mark Taylor, explains.
1:25 NASA's Balloon Finally Takes Off In Wanaka
Fifth time lucky and it's finally happened. NASA has finally managed to launch its super pressure balloon in Wanaka. The team has had to abort previous attempts since 1 April at Wanaka Airport. And even though it's been wild weather throughout the country, they've achieved success at last.
[gallery:2030]
NASA's programme chief, Debbie Fairbrother, has been monitoring the launch from the States.
You can follow its progress here
1:34 Joy Cowley supporting Featherston booktown
The small town of Featherston and the foot of the Rimutakas is well on the way to becoming an official booktown and is about to host its second annual celebration.
The booktown movement started in the Welsh town of Hay on Wye 1961 when Richard Booth decided to try and save the town's struggling rural economy by turning into a mecca for book lovers.
Featherson is currently on the provisional membership list for the booktown movement and has to prove it can host regular annual festivals to become an official booktown.
The second of those begins this Friday, with some very big names taking part including one of the country's most successful and well known writers, Joy Cowley
2:10 Space debris causes chip in space station window
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The chip in the station's cupola window is less than a centimetre across and was most likely caused by something extremely small, like a flake of paint or a tiny piece of metal. As astronaut Tim Peake put it "glad it is quadruple glazed"
Jer-Chyi Liou is the Chief science officer of NASA Orbital Debris Program, he explains why space debris remains such a big risk.
[image:68673:half]
2:20 Great New Zealand Album
The great New Zealand album today features one of the original members of a band whose debut album in 2002 was not only a break through for them, but for kiwi music in General.
"Riverhead" not only reached Number one on our album chart, but gained the band "Goldenhorse" a certain amount of notoriety in Australia, Europe and Scandinavia.
Guitarist and backing vocalist Ben King looks back on creating the album
3:10 Joseph Mazur: The math and myth of coincidence
Give a monkey a keyboard and eventually, it will type out a line from Shakespeare. Is a miracle or just maths? Retired mathematics professor Joseph Mazur explains how likely the unlikely really is in his latest book, Fluke: The Math and Myth of Coincidence
3:30 Science and environment stories
Stories from Our Changing World.
3:45 The Panel Pre-Show
=PLAYLIST=
JESSE MULLIGAN: AFTERNOONS & THE PANEL 1- 5pm
Tuesday May 17th
JESSE'S SONG:
ARTIST: The Beatles
TITLE: There's A Place
COMP: Paul McCartney, John Lennon
ALBUM: Please, Please Me
LABEL: Parlophone
FAVOURITE ALBUM:
ARTIST: Villagers
TITLE: Courage
COMP: Conor O'Brien
ALBUM: Where have you been all my Life?
LABEL: Domino
ARTIST: Villagers
TITLE: Memoir
COMP: Conor O'Brien
ALBUM: Where have you been all my Life?
LABEL: Domino
ARTIST: Villagers
TITLE: Wichita Lineman
COMP: Jimmy Webb
ALBUM: Where have you been all my Life?
LABEL: Domino
ARTIST: Villagers
TITLE: My Lighthouse
COMP: Conor O'Brien
ALBUM: Where have you been all my Life?
LABEL: Domino
GREAT NEW ZEALAND ALBUM:
ARTIST: Goldenhorse
TITLE: Maybe Tomorrow
COMP: Geoff Maddock, Kirsten Morrell, Ben King
ALBUM: Riverhead
LABEL: Siren / EMI
ARTIST: Goldenhorse
TITLE: Wake Up Brother
COMP: Geoff Maddock, Kirsten Morrell
ALBUM: Riverhead
LABEL: Siren / EMI
ARTIST: Goldenhorse
TITLE: Riverhead
COMP: Geoff Maddock, Kirsten Morrell
ALBUM: Riverhead
LABEL: Siren / EMI
ARTIST: Ben King
TITLE: No Ordinary Day
COMP: Ben King
ALBUM: Ben King
LABEL: Siren
ARTIST: Goldenhorse
TITLE: Northern Lights
COMP: Geoff Maddock, Kirsten Morrell
ALBUM: Riverhead
LABEL: Siren / EMI
ADDITIONAL TRACK:
ARTIST: Claude Rains
TITLE: Listening To The Sea
COMP: Murray Hewitt
ALBUM: Claude Rains
LABEL: Private
PANEL HALFTIME SONG:
ARTIST: Matthew Wow (feat: Ross B)
TITLE: The Planking Song
COMP: Matthew Wow
ALBUM: Single
LABEL: iTunes
===4:06 PM. | The Panel===
=DESCRIPTION=
An hour of discussion featuring a range of panellists from right along the opinion spectrum (RNZ)
=AUDIO=
15:45
The Panel pre-show for 17 May 2016
BODY:
Your feedback, and a preview of the guests and topics on The Panel.
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Duration: 14'08"
16:05
The Panel with Selwyn Manning and Golnaz Bassam-Tabar (Part 1)
BODY:
Topics - Lawyer Duncan Webb discusses the land deal done by the Overseas Investment Office which was sealed with $100,000 worth of digital equipment for a school. Auckland tennants are feeling regular rent hikes. Are these hiked out of greed or necessity by landlords?
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Duration: 22'30"
16:06
The Panel with Selwyn Manning and Golnaz Bassam-Tabar (Part 2)
BODY:
Topics - A Chinese man has beaten the Guinness World Record for planking. Former NZ PM Helen CLark doesn't want to get the UN top job because she's a woman and she wants to see diplomacy fix Syria. Al Gillespie discusses the fine mess the 100 year-old Sykes-Picot agreement has got the whole world into. Will Tony Blair be impeached? Donald Trump has challenged London's new mayor Sadiq Khan to an IQ test after criticism levelled at the presidential hopeful. Women could extend their lifespan by five months by going to church more than once a week.
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Duration: 28'19"
16:10
Panel Intro
BODY:
What the Panelists Selwyn Manning and Golnaz Bassam-Tabar have been up to.
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Duration: 6'47"
16:14
Laptops for land
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Lawyer Duncan Webb discusses the land deal done by the Overseas Investment Office which was sealed with $100,000 worth of digital equipment for a school.
Topics:
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Duration: 8'19"
16:25
Auckland rents
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Auckland tennants are feeling regular rent hikes. Are these hiked out of greed or necessity by landlords?
Topics:
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Duration: 7'07"
16:33
Planking record broken
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A Chinese man has beaten the Guinness World Record for planking.
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Duration: 3'42"
16:37
Panel Says
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What the Panelists Golnaz Bassam-Tabar and Selwyn Manning have been thinking about.
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Duration: 5'37"
16:42
Helen Clark and the UN
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Former NZ PM Helen CLark doesn't want to get the UN top job because she's a woman and she wants to see diplomacy fix Syria.
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Duration: 3'40"
16:44
100 years since the agreement that messed up the Middle East
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Al Gillespie discusses the fine mess the 100 year-old Sykes-Picot agreement has got the whole world into. And will Tony Blair be impeached?
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Duration: 5'56"
16:50
Trump challenges Khan to IQ test
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Donald Trump has challenged London's new mayor Sadiq Khan to an IQ test after criticism levelled at the presidential hopeful.
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Duration: 6'28"
16:57
Church-going could lengthen your life
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Women could extend their lifespan by five months by going to church more than once a week.
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Duration: 2'13"
=SHOW NOTES=
===5:00 PM. | Checkpoint===
=DESCRIPTION=
RNZ's weekday drive-time news and current affairs programme
=AUDIO=
17:00
Checkpoint with John Campbell, Tuesday 17th May 2016
BODY:
Watch Tuesday's full programme here.
Topics:
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Duration: 00"
17:08
Homeless falling into debt by WINZ motel policy
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Homeless people are being left in debt after being put up in motels by WINZ at their own cost. Alex Ashton reports.
Topics: housing
Regions:
Tags: homelessness, WINZ, emergency housing
Duration: 5'08"
17:15
Gotingco family devastated by Robertson report
BODY:
The husband of Blessie Gotingco, murdered by Tony Robertson, says he's devastated by the results of an inquiry on Robertson's management after being released from prison. John Campbell reports.
Topics:
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Tags: Blessie Gotingco, Tony Robertson
Duration: 5'07"
17:18
Birkdale community unaware of Robertson's convictions
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The Birkdale community on Auckland's North Shore had no idea that fellow resident Tony Robertson was a child sex offender who actively avoided rehabilitation while in prison.
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Tags: Tony Robertson, Blessie Gotingco, Corrections
Duration: 3'53"
17:25
Police cordon off Christchurch house
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Police have cordoned off a Christchurch house after a woman's body was discovered in Rakaia on Sunday.
Topics:
Regions: Canterbury
Tags:
Duration: 1'24"
17:27
Steven Adams looks set to become NZ's highest paid sports star.
BODY:
He was the youngest New Zealander to be picked in the first round of an NBA draft. This afternoon basketballer Steven Adams helped his Oklahoma City Thunder team upset the Golden State Warriors in a thriller playoff match. Our sports reporter Matt Chatterton joins John Campbell.
Topics: sport
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Tags: basketball, Steven Adams
Duration: 4'20"
17:33
Evening Business for 17 May 2016
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News from the business sector including a market report.
Topics: business, economy
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Tags: markets
Duration: 2'24"
17:35
Electricity Authority proposes new electricity charges
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The further you live from a power station, the more you pay for power - a future solution proposed by the Electricity Authority. Catherine Hutton reports.
Topics: energy
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Tags: power, power bills, electricity
Duration: 4'19"
17:40
Wakatipu High says investor's money required for poorer kids
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Wakatipu High School, a decile 10 high school in Queenstown, says a recent gift of $100,000 from a wealthy overseas investor is needed to help fund poorer students.
Topics:
Regions: Otago
Tags: Wakatipu High School, sensitive land
Duration: 3'54"
17:46
Malaghan Institute on the health research funding boost
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The Government has announced its largest-ever funding increase for health research in New Zealand.
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Duration: 5'32"
17:53
Professor correctly predicts US election outcome since 1984
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History professor Allan Lichtman has correctly predicted the outcome of every US presidential race dating back to 1984. He joins Checkpoint.
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Duration: 6'22"
17:57
Navy Commander found guilty
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A navy commander accused of groping a junior officer's bottom has been found guilty. It's the second time a court martial has heard the case, after a previous hearing in March failed to reach a verdict. Kate Newton has been covering the re-trial.
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Duration: 1'29"
18:08
Family of Gotingco say Corrections allowed murderer to kill her
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The family of Blessie Gotingco say Corrections allowed a murderer to take the life of their mother, wife and grandmother - despite a report that clears Corrections and police in their handling of the case.Our court reporter Edward Gay covered the trial of Tony Robertson.
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Duration: 3'39"
18:15
Minister says can't prevent cases like Tony Robertson
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Corrections Minister Judith Collins joins John Campbell.
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Duration: 6'19"
18:19
Highest ranking detective hangs up his badge
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Detective Superintendent Rod Drew is the highest ranking detective in the country, solving some of the most high profile murder cases in this country's history. John Campbell asked him why he's retiring.
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Duration: 9'59"
=SHOW NOTES=
===6:30 PM. | Worldwatch===
=DESCRIPTION=
The stories behind the international headlines
===7:06 PM. | Nights===
=DESCRIPTION=
RNZ's weeknight programme of entertainment and information
=AUDIO=
19:12
Our Own Odysseys - Clipper Round the World
BODY:
After a decade in London, and inspired by the death of two close friends, Katrina Boxall and her partner decided to emigrate back to NZ, by taking part in the longest yacht race in the world, the Clipper Round the World Yacht Race.
Topics: transport, life and society
Regions:
Tags: yachting
Duration: 20'05"
20:12
Nights Pundit - NZ History
BODY:
250 ships, 8500 dead. Senior Historian for the Ministry for Culture and Heritage, Gavin McLean, revisits WWI's biggest naval battle.
Topics: history
Regions:
Tags: World War One, Jutland
Duration: 20'56"
=SHOW NOTES=
[image:68711:full]
7:12 Our Own Odysseys - Clipper Round the World
After a decade in London, and inspired by the death of two close friends, Katrina Boxall and her partner decided to emigrate back to NZ, by taking part in the longest yacht race in the world, the Clipper Round the World Yacht Race, You can follow their progress on their facebook page.
7:30 The Sampler
=SHOW NOTES=
=AUDIO=
19:30
The Sampler for 17 May
BODY:
In The Sampler this week Nick Bollinger discusses the innovations and irritations of Canadian-born rapper Drake; a set of surreal and romantic duets by Sam Beam and Jesca Hoop; and a New York-inspired album from transplanted Texans Parquet Courts.
EXTENDED BODY:
In The Sampler this week Nick Bollinger discusses the innovations and irritations of Canadian-born rapper Drake; a set of surreal and romantic duets by Sam Beam and Jesca Hoop; and a New York-inspired album from transplanted Texans Parquet Courts.
Topics: music
Regions:
Tags: music, music review, Drake, Sam Beam and Jesca Hoop, Parquet Courts
Duration: 28'48"
19:30
Love Letter For Fire by Sam Beam and Jesca Hoop
BODY:
Nick Bollinger reviews a set of surreal and romantic duets by Sam Beam and Jesca Hoop.
EXTENDED BODY:
Nick Bollinger reviews a set of surreal and romantic duets by Sam Beam and Jesca Hoop.
When you think about how many solo singer-songwriters there are, it’s hardly surprising that there are so many songs that dwell on solitary reflection. Put a couple of songwriters together, though, and suddenly you’ve got a conversation.
The better known of this pair is Sam Beam - the North Carolina-based singer and songwriter who has recorded for the past fifteen years as Iron and Wine. But for this recording he’s joined by California-born and currently Manchester-ensconced Jesca Hoop (whose claims to fame include having been a member of Shearwater, and was once employed as nanny by Tom Waits and Kathleen Brennan.)
But it’s not just the fact that there are two voices here that makes the whole thing less solitary. There often seems to be a dialogue going on within the song itself.
The story goes that Beam had been entertaining the idea of a duo project for a while, and had a hunch that Hoop might be the right collaborator, though the pair had never actually met. With a view to advancing his plan, Beam invited Hoop to tour as an opening act for Iron and Wine. At the end of the tour, it was Hoop who put to Beam the suggestion of collaboration. And the sense that there is some pretty happy chemistry here seems to extend to the music. There’s a celebratory, romantic quality about songs like these that is just a little different from anything I’ve heard Sam Beam do before.
Beam and Hoop sing beautifully together, and Hoop’s presence seems to draw something out of the normally understated Beam. Not that he’s unrecognisable; the soft, folky surfaces are familiar from his records as Iron and Wine. Still these songs seem to draw bigger, more full-throated performances than I’m used to.
Though the voices and guitars of Beam and Hoop are central to all thirteen of these songs, the occasional addition of strings, the bass of Sebastian Steinberg and colourful percussion of Wilco drummer Glen Kotche gives some of these tracks the felling of small epics.
The other crucial collaborator here is producer and recording engineer Tucker Martine. If you’re familiar with the Decemberists, or the singer Laura Veirs to whom he is married, you will have heard the work before of the Portland-based sound man. He’s a master at mixing acoustic with electronic sounds, creating a sound world that can seem both intimate and infinite.
Sam Beam and Jesca Hoop’s album radiates trust and sharing, humour and imagination. It is called Love Letter For Fire, but if there’s anything being burned here, it is surely only for warmth.
Songs featured: Midas Touch, One Way To Pray, The Lamb You Lost, Know The Wild That Wants You, Bright Lights & Goodbyes, We Two Are A Moon.
Love Letter For Fire is available on Sub Pop Records.
Topics: music
Regions:
Tags: Sam Beam, Jesca Hoop, music, music review
Duration: 9'18"
19:30
Views by Drake
BODY:
Nick Bollinger discusses the innovations and irritations of Canadian-born rapper Drake.
EXTENDED BODY:
Nick Bollinger discusses the innovations and irritations of Canadian-born rapper Drake.
In the seldom-static world of R&B and hip-hop, Canadian rapper and singer Drake is impossible to ignore. In many ways he has changed both the sound and content of the genre. His records, more than anyone else’s, dissolve the line between rapping and singing, shifting back and forth between melody and recitation, over backings that are mellow and seductive in the mode of early-90s R&B.
Which is not to say his music is to everyone’s tastes. Up until ‘Hotline Bling’, his big from last year, I did my best to resist. Still, anyone who can revive Timmy Thomas’s ‘Why Can’t We Live Together? while fashioning a whole new song from its 70s-home-keyboard hook at least gets points for sharing my tastes in vintage soul.
That hit appears as a kind of bonus track, right at the end of the new album. Of course the message of ‘Hotline Bling’ is somewhat less altruistic than that of the song on which it is based; a profound and soulful plea for black civil rights. In Drake’s song – as in just about all of his songs – the chief subject is Drake, and the only injustice is the one being perpetrated against him by one or other ex-girlfriend. Which gets to heart of what is both most innovative and irritating about Drake.
When the former teen-television-star broke big with his 2010 debut, hip-hop was just emerging from a period of domination by self-styled sociopaths like Eminem or 50 Cent. But along with Kanye West’s ground-breaking 808s and Heartbreak, Drake’s Thank Me Later advanced the notion that the rapper could be vulnerable, could have doubts and insecurities and express these in a way that didn’t conform to the gangsta norm. Drake may have draped himself in all the usual symbols of success – big cars, bling, sexual opportunites – and yet he was left with something resembling depression, which he gave voice to in disarmingly personal songs. And, to a great extent, that’s still what he’s doing on this new disc.
In fact, his sensitivity borders on paranoia in ‘Keep the Family Close’, the album’s opening track, as he delivers in his Autotuned croon one of his typically curly melodies against a big moody orchestration. And he continues as he begins for the 80-odd minutes of music that follow.
“Why do I settle for women who force me to pick up the pieces? Why do I want an independent woman to feel like she needs me?” he moans rhetorically in ‘Redemption’, a track that displays both the best and worst of Drake. Musically the track is evocative; the backing is like a sound system playing in the next room. We’re on the other side of the wall; in fact we’re inside Drake’s head, right up against his conflicted thoughts. He almost puts us in the role of a priest taking confession, or at least a therapist.
But if we might, on the one hand, thank Drake for helping to shift hip-hop away from the guns, the violence, the overt misogyny of the gangsta rappers, how admirable are the things he replaces it with?
Materialism, as well as angst, looms large in Drake’s world. I stopped counting the number of different cars he namechecks on this album, each one seemingly status-encoded.
As black artists like Kendrick Lamar and Beyonce and D’Angelo usher in a new era of political awareness in black music, using their work to make strong statements on black lives, the only politics in Drake’s music is the personal. His Canadian background surely has something to do with it; his father was an African-American, born in Memphis, but his mother is Canadian and Jewish. And having grown up mostly in Toronto, perhaps he doesn’t feel qualified to speak out on African-American issues. But I also get the feeling that, whatever is going down in the wider world, Drake will always be too tied up in his own psychological dramas to notice.
Songs featured: Feel No Ways, Fire & Desire, Hotline Bling, Keep The Family Close, 9, Redemption, Hype, Views.
Views is available on OVO Sound/Young Money Entertainment/Cash Money Records.
Topics: music
Regions:
Tags: Drake, music, music review
Duration: 9'49"
19:30
Human Performance by Parquet Courts
BODY:
Nick Bollinger digests a New York-inspired album from transplanted Texans Parquet Courts.
EXTENDED BODY:
Nick Bollinger digests a New York-inspired album from transplanted Texans Parquet Courts.
The essential ingredients of rock ‘n’ roll are so simple, I sometimes wonder whether every combination has been exhausted. Then a band like this comes along and refreshes them again.
Parquet Courts’ new album, grabbed me with the opening track ‘Dust’. Not that I haven’t heard all the elements here plenty of times before: a kinetic drumbeat reminiscent of early Devo, that relentless one-chord guitar, an organ that might be straight off the first Jonathan Richman album, and a droll, sung-spoken vocal that taps a tradition stretching from Lou Reed to Steve Malkmus. And yet for the three-and-a-bit minutes that this song lasts, they make all those things seem new.
For a start, anyone who succeeds in writing a song which gets all the chord changes out of the way in the ten seconds before the drums and vocals come in has my respect; that’s making minimalism work for you. And what a great subject for a minimalist rant: those atmospheric particles that are unavoidable and everywhere. It’s the perfect metaphor for whatever you want, or don’t want, in your life. Or it’s ecological, the wearing down of the world. Sweep as much as you like, it keeps on coming. Or it could just be a song about dust.
Human Performance is the fifth album Parquet Courts have made, since they formed in New York City, just over five years ago, around Texas-born brothers Andrew and Max Savage. And kicking it off with a track as immediate as ‘Dust’ (a song by guitarist and co-lead-singer Austin Brown) is their most surefooted move so far.
In some ways, it is case of maximising limitations. Neither Brown of Andrew Savage, who share most of the vocals, is a conventionally strong singer, though that doesn’t detract from the effectiveness of the song that gives the album its title.
There is the odd melodic moment. The title track has a pretty tune with a lilting ache, as befits the lyric: a love song, or at least a song about losing love.
For most of Human Performance, though, Parquet Courts write as though all the tunes have already been taken and they are not going to let it bother them. Instead they work in an area that’s not quite melody, not quite rap, yet perfect for lyrics as thoughtful and playful as these.
On ‘Captive of the Sun’ the music shimmers, like a city through fog, helped by the pealing notes of a vibraphone, while the images pile up in a way that reminds me of Beck. The song makes a picture of urban New York – the Savage brothers’ adopted home – as music; hence great images of ‘half-tone harmonies from the sewer’ and a ‘first-chair car crash’ in the Philharmonic.
This is thinking-person’s rock’n’roll, but Parquet Courts’ thinking can be as punk as it is poetic, particularly in a song like ‘Two Dead Cops’, which sounds a note of solidarity with the Black Lives Matter campaign by comparing the public mourning over the shooting of two police officers with the overwhelming complacency towards the number of black youths who die at the hands of the cops. It’s hardly the album’s most musically original moment, but in its punk directness and tough political stance it smashes through any notion that these transplanted Texans have turned into effete art-rockers.
Parquet Courts are a relatively new band, and can still sound a bit like a tribute to their record collections. But with Human Performance, they have made a good album; perhaps better than anyone could have predicted who saw their musically impressive yet oddly uncharismatic shows here a year ago. Hopefully they will come this way again, and I’ll be curious to see whether their presence has grown as much on stage as it has on disc.
Songs featured: Dust, Human Performance, Captive Of The Sun, One Man No City, Two Dead Cops, Outside.
Human Performance is available on Rough Trade Records.
Topics: music
Regions:
Tags: Parquet Courts, music, music review
Duration: 9'54"
7:30 The Sampler
This week Nick Bollinger discusses the innovations and irritations of Canadian-born rapper Drake; a set of surreal and romantic duets by Sam Beam and Jesca Hoop; and a New York-inspired album from transplanted Texans Parquet Courts
8:12 Nights' Pundit - NZ History
250 ships, 8500 dead. Senior Historian for the Ministry for Culture and Heritage Gavin McLean revisits WWI's biggest naval battle.
[image:68705:full]
8:30 Window on the World
Human rights may aspire to be universal - they should belong to everyone, everywhere - but there has been resistance to them on philosophical or theological grounds by powerful states and world religions. Lawyer Helena Kennedy looks at these issues and the rise of the human rights movement since 1948 in the second of two programmes
9:07 Tuesday Feature
Family and Genealogy - the second programme of 'Gene Genie ' -our discussion series considering the effects of DNA, our genes, our genomes, with particular emphasis on genealogy and family issues.
10:17 Late Edition
A round up of today's RNZ News and feature interviews as well as Date Line Pacific from RNZ International
11:07 At the Eleventh Hour
This week Global Village features some reggae and reggae-influenced music from Bob Marley, son Ziggy Marley, Jamaican guitar legend Ernest Ranglin, highlife-reggae-soul group Selasee & The Fafa Family and more.
===7:35 PM. | The Sampler===
=DESCRIPTION=
A weekly review and analysis of new CD releases
=AUDIO=
19:30
The Sampler for 17 May
BODY:
In The Sampler this week Nick Bollinger discusses the innovations and irritations of Canadian-born rapper Drake; a set of surreal and romantic duets by Sam Beam and Jesca Hoop; and a New York-inspired album from transplanted Texans Parquet Courts.
EXTENDED BODY:
In The Sampler this week Nick Bollinger discusses the innovations and irritations of Canadian-born rapper Drake; a set of surreal and romantic duets by Sam Beam and Jesca Hoop; and a New York-inspired album from transplanted Texans Parquet Courts.
Topics: music
Regions:
Tags: music, music review, Drake, Sam Beam and Jesca Hoop, Parquet Courts
Duration: 28'48"
19:30
Love Letter For Fire by Sam Beam and Jesca Hoop
BODY:
Nick Bollinger reviews a set of surreal and romantic duets by Sam Beam and Jesca Hoop.
EXTENDED BODY:
Nick Bollinger reviews a set of surreal and romantic duets by Sam Beam and Jesca Hoop.
When you think about how many solo singer-songwriters there are, it’s hardly surprising that there are so many songs that dwell on solitary reflection. Put a couple of songwriters together, though, and suddenly you’ve got a conversation.
The better known of this pair is Sam Beam - the North Carolina-based singer and songwriter who has recorded for the past fifteen years as Iron and Wine. But for this recording he’s joined by California-born and currently Manchester-ensconced Jesca Hoop (whose claims to fame include having been a member of Shearwater, and was once employed as nanny by Tom Waits and Kathleen Brennan.)
But it’s not just the fact that there are two voices here that makes the whole thing less solitary. There often seems to be a dialogue going on within the song itself.
The story goes that Beam had been entertaining the idea of a duo project for a while, and had a hunch that Hoop might be the right collaborator, though the pair had never actually met. With a view to advancing his plan, Beam invited Hoop to tour as an opening act for Iron and Wine. At the end of the tour, it was Hoop who put to Beam the suggestion of collaboration. And the sense that there is some pretty happy chemistry here seems to extend to the music. There’s a celebratory, romantic quality about songs like these that is just a little different from anything I’ve heard Sam Beam do before.
Beam and Hoop sing beautifully together, and Hoop’s presence seems to draw something out of the normally understated Beam. Not that he’s unrecognisable; the soft, folky surfaces are familiar from his records as Iron and Wine. Still these songs seem to draw bigger, more full-throated performances than I’m used to.
Though the voices and guitars of Beam and Hoop are central to all thirteen of these songs, the occasional addition of strings, the bass of Sebastian Steinberg and colourful percussion of Wilco drummer Glen Kotche gives some of these tracks the felling of small epics.
The other crucial collaborator here is producer and recording engineer Tucker Martine. If you’re familiar with the Decemberists, or the singer Laura Veirs to whom he is married, you will have heard the work before of the Portland-based sound man. He’s a master at mixing acoustic with electronic sounds, creating a sound world that can seem both intimate and infinite.
Sam Beam and Jesca Hoop’s album radiates trust and sharing, humour and imagination. It is called Love Letter For Fire, but if there’s anything being burned here, it is surely only for warmth.
Songs featured: Midas Touch, One Way To Pray, The Lamb You Lost, Know The Wild That Wants You, Bright Lights & Goodbyes, We Two Are A Moon.
Love Letter For Fire is available on Sub Pop Records.
Topics: music
Regions:
Tags: Sam Beam, Jesca Hoop, music, music review
Duration: 9'18"
19:30
Views by Drake
BODY:
Nick Bollinger discusses the innovations and irritations of Canadian-born rapper Drake.
EXTENDED BODY:
Nick Bollinger discusses the innovations and irritations of Canadian-born rapper Drake.
In the seldom-static world of R&B and hip-hop, Canadian rapper and singer Drake is impossible to ignore. In many ways he has changed both the sound and content of the genre. His records, more than anyone else’s, dissolve the line between rapping and singing, shifting back and forth between melody and recitation, over backings that are mellow and seductive in the mode of early-90s R&B.
Which is not to say his music is to everyone’s tastes. Up until ‘Hotline Bling’, his big from last year, I did my best to resist. Still, anyone who can revive Timmy Thomas’s ‘Why Can’t We Live Together? while fashioning a whole new song from its 70s-home-keyboard hook at least gets points for sharing my tastes in vintage soul.
That hit appears as a kind of bonus track, right at the end of the new album. Of course the message of ‘Hotline Bling’ is somewhat less altruistic than that of the song on which it is based; a profound and soulful plea for black civil rights. In Drake’s song – as in just about all of his songs – the chief subject is Drake, and the only injustice is the one being perpetrated against him by one or other ex-girlfriend. Which gets to heart of what is both most innovative and irritating about Drake.
When the former teen-television-star broke big with his 2010 debut, hip-hop was just emerging from a period of domination by self-styled sociopaths like Eminem or 50 Cent. But along with Kanye West’s ground-breaking 808s and Heartbreak, Drake’s Thank Me Later advanced the notion that the rapper could be vulnerable, could have doubts and insecurities and express these in a way that didn’t conform to the gangsta norm. Drake may have draped himself in all the usual symbols of success – big cars, bling, sexual opportunites – and yet he was left with something resembling depression, which he gave voice to in disarmingly personal songs. And, to a great extent, that’s still what he’s doing on this new disc.
In fact, his sensitivity borders on paranoia in ‘Keep the Family Close’, the album’s opening track, as he delivers in his Autotuned croon one of his typically curly melodies against a big moody orchestration. And he continues as he begins for the 80-odd minutes of music that follow.
“Why do I settle for women who force me to pick up the pieces? Why do I want an independent woman to feel like she needs me?” he moans rhetorically in ‘Redemption’, a track that displays both the best and worst of Drake. Musically the track is evocative; the backing is like a sound system playing in the next room. We’re on the other side of the wall; in fact we’re inside Drake’s head, right up against his conflicted thoughts. He almost puts us in the role of a priest taking confession, or at least a therapist.
But if we might, on the one hand, thank Drake for helping to shift hip-hop away from the guns, the violence, the overt misogyny of the gangsta rappers, how admirable are the things he replaces it with?
Materialism, as well as angst, looms large in Drake’s world. I stopped counting the number of different cars he namechecks on this album, each one seemingly status-encoded.
As black artists like Kendrick Lamar and Beyonce and D’Angelo usher in a new era of political awareness in black music, using their work to make strong statements on black lives, the only politics in Drake’s music is the personal. His Canadian background surely has something to do with it; his father was an African-American, born in Memphis, but his mother is Canadian and Jewish. And having grown up mostly in Toronto, perhaps he doesn’t feel qualified to speak out on African-American issues. But I also get the feeling that, whatever is going down in the wider world, Drake will always be too tied up in his own psychological dramas to notice.
Songs featured: Feel No Ways, Fire & Desire, Hotline Bling, Keep The Family Close, 9, Redemption, Hype, Views.
Views is available on OVO Sound/Young Money Entertainment/Cash Money Records.
Topics: music
Regions:
Tags: Drake, music, music review
Duration: 9'49"
19:30
Human Performance by Parquet Courts
BODY:
Nick Bollinger digests a New York-inspired album from transplanted Texans Parquet Courts.
EXTENDED BODY:
Nick Bollinger digests a New York-inspired album from transplanted Texans Parquet Courts.
The essential ingredients of rock ‘n’ roll are so simple, I sometimes wonder whether every combination has been exhausted. Then a band like this comes along and refreshes them again.
Parquet Courts’ new album, grabbed me with the opening track ‘Dust’. Not that I haven’t heard all the elements here plenty of times before: a kinetic drumbeat reminiscent of early Devo, that relentless one-chord guitar, an organ that might be straight off the first Jonathan Richman album, and a droll, sung-spoken vocal that taps a tradition stretching from Lou Reed to Steve Malkmus. And yet for the three-and-a-bit minutes that this song lasts, they make all those things seem new.
For a start, anyone who succeeds in writing a song which gets all the chord changes out of the way in the ten seconds before the drums and vocals come in has my respect; that’s making minimalism work for you. And what a great subject for a minimalist rant: those atmospheric particles that are unavoidable and everywhere. It’s the perfect metaphor for whatever you want, or don’t want, in your life. Or it’s ecological, the wearing down of the world. Sweep as much as you like, it keeps on coming. Or it could just be a song about dust.
Human Performance is the fifth album Parquet Courts have made, since they formed in New York City, just over five years ago, around Texas-born brothers Andrew and Max Savage. And kicking it off with a track as immediate as ‘Dust’ (a song by guitarist and co-lead-singer Austin Brown) is their most surefooted move so far.
In some ways, it is case of maximising limitations. Neither Brown of Andrew Savage, who share most of the vocals, is a conventionally strong singer, though that doesn’t detract from the effectiveness of the song that gives the album its title.
There is the odd melodic moment. The title track has a pretty tune with a lilting ache, as befits the lyric: a love song, or at least a song about losing love.
For most of Human Performance, though, Parquet Courts write as though all the tunes have already been taken and they are not going to let it bother them. Instead they work in an area that’s not quite melody, not quite rap, yet perfect for lyrics as thoughtful and playful as these.
On ‘Captive of the Sun’ the music shimmers, like a city through fog, helped by the pealing notes of a vibraphone, while the images pile up in a way that reminds me of Beck. The song makes a picture of urban New York – the Savage brothers’ adopted home – as music; hence great images of ‘half-tone harmonies from the sewer’ and a ‘first-chair car crash’ in the Philharmonic.
This is thinking-person’s rock’n’roll, but Parquet Courts’ thinking can be as punk as it is poetic, particularly in a song like ‘Two Dead Cops’, which sounds a note of solidarity with the Black Lives Matter campaign by comparing the public mourning over the shooting of two police officers with the overwhelming complacency towards the number of black youths who die at the hands of the cops. It’s hardly the album’s most musically original moment, but in its punk directness and tough political stance it smashes through any notion that these transplanted Texans have turned into effete art-rockers.
Parquet Courts are a relatively new band, and can still sound a bit like a tribute to their record collections. But with Human Performance, they have made a good album; perhaps better than anyone could have predicted who saw their musically impressive yet oddly uncharismatic shows here a year ago. Hopefully they will come this way again, and I’ll be curious to see whether their presence has grown as much on stage as it has on disc.
Songs featured: Dust, Human Performance, Captive Of The Sun, One Man No City, Two Dead Cops, Outside.
Human Performance is available on Rough Trade Records.
Topics: music
Regions:
Tags: Parquet Courts, music, music review
Duration: 9'54"
=SHOW NOTES=
===8:30 PM. | Windows On The World===
=DESCRIPTION=
International public radio features and documentaries
===9:06 PM. | None (National)===
=DESCRIPTION=
Gene Genie - Family and Genealogy: In the second of five panel discussions on the implications of genetic research Dr Adam Rutherford discusses genealogy and family issues with University of Otago Professors Lisa Matisoo-Smith, Stephen Robertson and Hamish Spencer (2 of 5, RNZ)
===10:00 PM. | Late Edition===
Late Edition for 17 May 2016
The dangers of space junk, the fracker who's now trying to save rhinos, and in Dateline Pacific, armed police quell protests in Papua New Guinea.
=DESCRIPTION=
RNZ news, including Dateline Pacific and the day's best interviews from RNZ National
===11:06 PM. | None (National)===
=DESCRIPTION=
A selection world music, along with jazz, rock, folk and other styles, artists and songs with world and roots influences chosen and presented by Wichita radio host Chris Heim (9 of 12, KMUW)