Derek Walmsley

@derekwalmsley

I'm almost always trying to make the text flow better or reduce the number of words. Music writing in The Wire, Electronic Sound, The Quietus, LRB, elsewhere. slowmotion.blog

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Derek Walmsley@derekwalmsley· Jun 2

Richard Dawson: the complete reverb tapes.

Richard Dawson talks about reverb in the music of the Fateh Ali Khan party in The Wire’s Invisible Jukebox feature.

Richard Dawson talks about reverb in the music of Quinie in The Wire’s Invisible Jukebox feature.

Richard Dawson talks about reverb in the music of PJ Harvey

RD on reverb or the absence thereof in the music of The Velvet Underground

Derek Walmsley@derekwalmsley· May 14

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Derek Walmsley@derekwalmsley· Apr 4

Was this first paragraph written by Stormin’ Norman?

BBC report on Iran conflict which posits “a long history of US combat search and rescue missions over decades”

Derek Walmsley@derekwalmsley· Apr 1

Strong argument against the use of AI right here.

AI overview of what the famous junglist phrase “31 seconds” supposedly refers to, with no reference at all to Origin Unknown’s “Valley Of The Shadows”

Derek Walmsley@derekwalmsley· Mar 27

The AI generated hype text that Spotify presents as ersatz sleevenotes to My First Plays On Spotify makes me want to gnaw my own arm off

Derek Walmsley@derekwalmsley· Mar 27

Amazing language in this one

Picture of AK Blakemore’s book The Glutton (Granta)

Derek Walmsley@derekwalmsley· Mar 11

This reminds me of The Traitors when some complete random gets recruited and tries the robe on, claims it feels great but they‘re squirming awkwardly and you know they’ll be gone soon

Entrance to TG Jones at Westfield Stratford

Derek Walmsley@derekwalmsley· Mar 4

Also was privileged to review this important new book on the music world in Ukraine amid war

Review of Ukrainian Field Notes book in The Wire's Print Run section

Derek Walmsley@derekwalmsley· Mar 4

Savage Pencil strikes again! The brand new @thewiremagazine.bsky.social includes my guide to the world of outernational visionary Augustus Pablo, from sideman dates to digital steppers in the dancehall era, which has been on the back burner for many a month

Wendy Eisenberg on the cover of The Wire magazine 506

Primer spread with shot of Pablo and Junior Delgado rocking the Astoria in 1987

Opening spread of The Primer article on Augustus Pablo with Savage Pencil illustration

Derek Walmsley@derekwalmsley· Feb 4

AI hallucinating “no-debate examples" 🤔

A Chat GPT response to a request for band names inspired by Brian Eno, presenting examples of Ultravox, Japan and China Crisis which are all false

Derek Walmsley@derekwalmsley· Feb 3

Big bunch of stuff in the new @thewiremagazine.bsky.social including hardcore hiphop bringing the noise in articles by Joe and Rob, plus me on Autechre guitar, Glasgow improvisers and brief histories of sound recording

Derek Walmsley@derekwalmsley· Jan 22

And for @electronicsound.bsky.social I had a blast shooting the breeze with Oneohtrix/Daniel Lopatin swapping a couple of sample library CD tips and talking anything and everything re: his great new Tranquilizer album

Opening spread of Oneohtrix Point Never feature in the new Electronic Sound magazine

Derek Walmsley@derekwalmsley· Jan 4

If you are canny you can still access sleevenotes of the first 30 or so Blood & Fire compilations on a version of their website on the Wayback Machine. Years or more accurately decades of reggae music scholarship

A screenshot from the Wayback Machine of the old Blood & Fire website from 2012, with cover notes downloadable in the Discography section of the website

Derek Walmsley@derekwalmsley· Dec 28

What was I thinking with that screenshot. This one.

Derek Walmsley@derekwalmsley· Dec 28

Always happy to see Dana Andrews on my screen

Dana Andrews in Otto Preminger’s Laura (1944)

Derek Walmsley@derekwalmsley· Dec 27

This is beer of the holiday

A glass and empty bottle of Timothy Taylor Landlord Dark

Derek Walmsley@derekwalmsley· Dec 27

some serious heat on iPlayer films section for your noir xmas

iPlayer watchlist with classic b&w films including Farewell My Lovely and Witness For The Prosecution

Derek Walmsley@derekwalmsley· Dec 16

It feels like Photobucket is stalking me.

Selection of email subject lines form Photobucket including "we found photos your probably thought were gone" and "the past is calling (and it has photos)"

Derek Walmsley@derekwalmsley· Dec 5

Couple of reallly great things happening this weekend if you can make it. The briliiant Ricardo Dias Gomes is playing with Jeremy Gustin at TRC on Saturday via @hivemindrecords.bandcamp.com

Derek Walmsley@derekwalmsley· Nov 25

very sad to hear of the death of Jimmy Cliff. We got down to the recent Harder They Come musical in Stratford a month or two back, and it was a pure joy. Beg, borrow or steal a ticket if if comes again.

Natey Jones in the Matthew Xia production of The Harder They Come at Theatre Royal Stratford East

Derek Walmsley@derekwalmsley· Nov 22

Glasgow.

A piece of card from the 1960s reading “A World Cup without Scotland is like a pastoral without sheep” from Ian Hamilton Finlay exhibition at GSA

Derek Walmsley@derekwalmsley· Nov 13

@scottygb.bsky.social on BBC London lunchtime news: “now, I’ve just realised I’ve dressed like Pudsey Bear”

BBC London newscaster commenting on their yellow jumper’s similarity to Pudsey

Derek Walmsley@derekwalmsley· Nov 6

RIP Adrian Maben! Very glad I got the chance to upgrade from teenage VHS to IMAX this year

The opening shot of Pink Floyd’s Live At Pompeii film with their equipment strewn across the floor of the auditorium and the cameras about to roll

Derek Walmsley@derekwalmsley· Nov 4

Awesome new issue of @thewiremagazine.bsky.social, with amazing Francis Gooding interview going deep into the scales of Ethrio jazz, even wilder Griot Galaxy story, plus my review of @ucpress.bsky.social book by Theodore Gordon rethinking the synthesizer utopia

December issue of The Wire with Mulatu Astatke on the cover

Print Run review of The Composer’s Black Box book

Derek Walmsley@derekwalmsley· Oct 10

A rare piece of Wikipedia shade

excerpt regarding Simon Pegg’s Hollywood career in the Mission Impossible franchise

Derek Walmsley@derekwalmsley· Oct 9

Among all the good shit in the new issue of @thewiremagazine.bsky.social I got to write about the original don Horace Silver and his killer left hand

Cover of the November issue of The Wire with image of claire rousay

Derek Walmsley@derekwalmsley· Oct 1

Sorry for the tired photo. Had to get up multiple times in the night to reassure him I was not dead.

Blurred photo of a stripy male cat looking angelic next to food bowls the morning after keeping us up all night

Derek Walmsley@derekwalmsley· Sep 30

Love this little note on the bottom of a rave blurb for the reissue of Goldie’s Timeless on the @boomkat.com site (and still not on Spotify)

Derek Walmsley@derekwalmsley· Sep 24

Luciano Berio in his Wikipedia image looks like a comedian being lined up for Taskmaster series 21. upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/co...

Luciano Berio in the 1970s, in a CC image from his Wiki page

Derek Walmsley@derekwalmsley· Sep 16

Oh no! I can’t have been the only young kid to have seen this and thought ‘OK, cinema can do THIS’