Machine Translations

Machine Translations began as a home recording project for multi-instrumentalist J. Walker. Though the songs he wrote were pop, the lo-fi recording options available to him -- working on old reel-to-reel four tracks -- and a preference for tricky time signatures, led him into experimental areas. Still, there was enough pop promise in his early demos for the record label Spunk! to sign him. Recording albums for Spunk! meant touring to support them, so Walker put together an ever-shifting lineup of friends to be his band. Pianist Kevin White was one of the group's only steady members as Walker created a new incarnation every time he moved, which was frequently.

After finishing a degree in Linguistics and Mandarin Chinese, Walker returned to Australia from Shanghai and recorded the first three Machine Translations albums in a flood of productivity. Abstract Poverty was released in 1997, Halo in 1998, and Holiday in Spain in 1999. Chinese poetry was a strong influence on his impressionist lyrics, which loaded each line with multiple meanings while being vague enough when taken as a whole to be open to interpretation