New Horizons
with William Dart
Sundays at 7:00 pm
Series Two 2009
21 June - 23 August (10 programmes)
23 August
For the final programme in this series, William takes a quick look at five new CDs:
Joe Henry - Blood From Stars (Anti)
Allen Toussaint - The Bright Mississippi (Nonesuch)
Eels - Hombre Lobo: 12 Songs of Desire (Vagrant)
George & Queen - The Wind is Up (Gone Quiet)
Incredible String Band - Across the Airwaves (BBC)
The rest of the time is filled with lots and lots of ukuleles: tracks from Johnny Ukulele, Priscilla Ahn, P J Harvey & John Parish, Honey Duke and His Uke, Tiny Tim, Dent May and Nola McCrorie of The Tumbleweeds.
16 August
The Kronos Quartet was formed in 1973 and released its first recording in 1982. As well as being an enthusiastic proponent of new 'classical' music, the Quartet has collaborated with many musicians from the pop, rock, jazz and world music fields. William takes a look at some of these recordings - including collaborations with Tom Verlaine, Tom Waits, Dave Matthews, Joan Armatrading, Bob Ostertag, Matmos, Asha Bhosle, Wesla Whitfield and The Tiger Lillies. William also plays three tracks from the Quartet's new album Floodplain (Nonesuch) including works with Palestinian music collective Ramallah Underground and the Alim Qasimov Ensemble from Azerbaijan.
9 August
Three new local releases:
Bachelorette - My Electric Family (Particle Tracks)
The Sproutts - Woman, Man, and Machine (self-released)
Pie Warmer - The Fearsome Feeling (Lil Chief LCR 023)
And then four miscellaneous tracks: one, a take on Saint-Saëns's The Swan from cellist Alexander Ivashkin with Ora Barlow and Kim Halliday taken from their release 'Pacific Voyage', two from The Benka Barodovsky Bordello Band's new album 'Polkapocalypse', and to finish off for the hell of it, New Zealand's own virtuoso tin-whistleist, Hughie Gordon tootles Sweet Georgia Brown - a classic 1955 Tanza recording.
2 August
Elvis Costello - Secret, Profane & Sugarcane (Universal)
Aimee Mann - @#%&*! Smilers (SuperEgo)
26 July
Two expatriate New Zealand musicians: David Leahy, who is currently touring NZ with his band The Pioneers, and Miriama Young, who as Miri is a member of The Briney Deep. Both bands have released self-titled albums recently.
William begins the show with a couple of old NZ folk recordings: The Chequers singing The Unfortunate Miss Bailey and Tamburlaine singing Wakamarina.
19 July
New releases from American songwriters:
Jason Lytle - Yours Truly, The Commuter (Anti)
St Vincent - Actor (4AD)
Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band - Outer South (UN SPK)
Eilen Jewell - Sea of Tears (Signature Sounds)
As a little bit of background, William plays a couple of tracks from Jason Lytle's previous band Grandaddy - their EP 'Excepts from the Diary of Todd Zilla', and a track from The Polyphonic Spree of which St Vincent aka Annie Clark used to be a member.
12 July
This day marks the birthday of Oscar Hammerstein II, unapologetically the most sanguine of all lyricists - a man who delighted in celebrating the honest, the naive, the good and the beautiful on the musical stage. But how do his songs fare when covered by performers away from the footlights? William casts his net wide and features performances from Mandy Patinkin, Eels, Marlene Dietrich, The Bonzo Dog Band, Sparks, Geula Gill, John Wallowitch, Jeff Beck, Rod Stewart, Duke Ellington, Bud Freeman and His Orchestra, Evelyn Laye, Billie Holiday, Jane Olivor, Neneh Cherry, Phranc, Robin S and The Cheltenham Bach Choir. Also included are excerpts from an interview between Hammerstein and Arnold Michaelis recorded in 1959.
5 July
Featured albums:
Beck - One Foot in the Grave (reissue) (Iliad/XL) - "...curiously affecting..."
Broken Records - Until the Earth Begins to Part (4AD) - "...tedious..."
Golden Silvers - True Romance (XL) - "...knack for freshening up formulas..."
Grizzly Bear - Veckatimest (Warp) - "...pop sensibility holds it together..."
William burrows into one or two other Beck discs on the way. And listen out for cameos from Them (It's all over now, baby blue) and Barry Ryan (the magnificent Eloise).
28 June
Bookending the programme are two tracks which were chosen by Andy Cabic of the band Vetiver in a sort of Desert Island Discs list for Discollective: Love and Maple Syrup by Gordon Lightfoot and The Beautiful Waitress by Terry Allen.
Within these, Williams looks at three new releases:
Vetiver - Tight Knit (Subpop)
Elvis Perkins in Dreamland - [self-titled] (XL)
Hallways: The Songs of Carol Hall (LML Music)
21 June
Adventures in Americana:
Bob Dylan - Together Through Life (Columbia)
Ramblin' Jack Elliott - A Stranger Here (Anti)
Steve Earle - Townes (New West)
The Handsome Family - Honey Moon (Carrot Top)
The new Dylan album comes with an extra disc containing an episode of his Theme Time Radio Hour and William starts his hour with some pickin's from this.
The Team
Presented by
William Dart
Produced by Tim Dodd
Email us newhorizons@radionz.co.nz
About New Horizons
William Dart hosts an hour of rock, pop, country or folk music; each programme focusing on a new release or two and placing these in the context of an artist's career to date. His encyclopaedic knowledge and gargantuan record collection allow him to find hidden gems and surprising links. With plenty of humour along the way, William gives a serious treatment to these vital forms of music.
Schedule
New Horizons will have three series in 2012.
Series One: 4 March - 6 May (9 programmes - no programme on 18 March)
Series Two: 3 June - 12 August (11 programmes)
Series Three: To be confirmed (10 programmes)
Plus a Christmas special probably on 23 December.
When a series is running, the programme plays on Sundays at 7.00pm, on Radio New Zealand Concert.
Podcasts?
Each New Horizons programme will be available as audio on demand for two weeks following the date of broadcast.
William Dart's Track Record
New Horizons has been on air for over thirty years. Its first broadcast in April 1980 was heralded by a cover on the New Zealand Listener. The albums featured on that cover - albums by Ry Cooder, XTC, The Kinks and Ray Davies, Sparks, Randy Newman, Lou Reed, Joni Mitchell, Elvis Costello and Jonathan Richman - were chosen by William. The artists have mostly continued to have flourishing careers and have been featured many times on the programme over the years. It just goes to show that William knows how to pick'em.