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MACHINE TRANSLATIONS

By Baz Bardoe

Somewhere between the major label polish of singer songwriters like John Mayer and Pete Murray and the remnants of a true underground sound, is the output of one J Walker, better known as the force behind Machine Translations.

A multi instrumentalist his biography also describes him as a ‘home recordist’, so naturally we were interested in talking with him. Signed to the influential indie label ‘Spunk’ his five albums and an EP have attracted the most over the top praise. Rave in Queensland for example is quoted as saying, ‘brilliant new album from Melbourne genius’.Rolling Stone said, ‘a peculiar and wonderful album’. You get the idea.

He combines an eclectic range of organic instrumentation to create tunes that are simultaneously pop and something a little deeper. His lyrics in particular display a level of maturity a bit beyond what you’d associate with pop. Having toured extensively supporting top international acts such as Lloyd Cole, Catpower and Badly Drawn Boy, as well as Australian acts such as the Church and the Dirty Three, J Walker has even collaborated with Icelandic producer Valgeir Siggurdson who has worked with Bjork amongst others.

J Walker was once an analogue tape guy but he now uses an Apple D4 running Pro Tools and has very much ‘come around to using a computer.’ A huge part of this has to do with the sheer logistics of running tape. You see he likes to experiment with sounds, which means lots of recording, and lots of tape needing to be stored with all of the problems of deterioration as well. ‘I’ve got crates full of half inch tape!’ he states.

With his current setup he explains that he can easily back up sessions onto CDR. Being someone who also produces other bands this is especially important. As well as a range of organic instruments he mentions some microphones such as the Neumann U87 and AKG 451 as well as Rode mikes. Eyebrows are raised when he produces the Sony ‘lapel mike’ in a session but he says it can be great for vocals. His recording philosophy now is that ‘you’ve got to spend a bit more time getting the actual sounds right with digital’ before you get to the mixing stage. It’s especially important in his view not to rely on too much EQing too late in the process. The power of Pro Tools is such however that there is vast scope for sound alteration, which is another benefit, as well as ‘much better results for a smaller outlay’.

I asked him what his favourite piece of kit was and how he tended to generate his sounds.

‘I generate a lot of my sounds fairly organically, I tend to use guitars a lot, drumkits…..and then I’ll sort of manipulate them afterwards.’ He talks for example about making a drum loop using real drums and then overlaying it with other percussive elements whilst still retaining the live timing feel. It is ‘perhaps a more time consuming way of generating sounds but they tend to have their own character.’ His palette of musical sources is also quite extensive. During the interview he mentions using strings, Arabic drums, Chinese instrumentation, classical music and much more. This diversity of musical influences has a subtle effect on his music, making it standout from a more straight forward pop rock kind of sound.

I asked him how he came to do a track with the Icelandic producer who had worked with Bjork and Sigur Ros.

‘That was actually through Mushroom, my publisher.’ He explains that every couple of years or so they do a writers’ workshop where some of the people on their roster are teamed up with people they perhaps wouldn’t ordinarily get to write with. ‘You basically work with someone for a day and at the end you’ve written and recorded a song together, and I found that to be really, really good…’ A lot of people apparently go into it slightly apprehensive, but he found the experience and the result to be great.

I posed the always difficult one to him, namely what ideas, advice or wisdom does he have for people who are starting out on the path of creating their own original music.

"If you’ve got a strong musical vision that is really quite unique then you should cling to it."

‘Gosh….I think I’ve got fairly useless advice to give but I think it always comes back down to…it’ll always end up like a cliché but it comes back to things like, following your own musical ideas and trying not to compromise them too much, because you inevitably end up in situations where you are being asked or forced to compromise ... to make money or to please your record label. But ultimately I think there is a lot of music being played in Australia that is unoriginal at the higher end of the charts at the moment, but the really interesting stuff kind of bubbles along underneath that. If you’ve got a strong musical vision that is really quite unique then you should cling to it.’

Which is exactly what J Walker has done with Machine Translations, an act that is really quite incredibly successful in its own unassuming way. Check out the website at: www.machinetranslations.org