on banjo, electric and classical guitars; Elmo Reed on lead vocals and electric guitar; and Melissa Owl. It was issued on Spunk! Records and achieved critical acclaim and "got everyone paying attention". Walker described collaborating with Freer, Loucataris, and Nix: "We've known each other for at least 10 years ... I really enjoy working with them, and writing with them, because, doing what I do, I know my own tricks, but with the group there's far less chance of stagnation". Bad Shapes provided "Poor Circle", a "radio-friendly" single which was "[i]rresistibly fresh, bent and poppy" according to The Ages Jo Roberts. After the album appeared Walker moved to Melbourne. He toured the eastern states of Australia and then in late 2001 Machine Translations supported instrumental group, Dirty Three, on a ten‑day tour of the United States. Walker's group then toured Europe including a gig in Paris on a boat in the Seine. In October 2002 the group released their next album, Happy, which Munro felt was "an advance on its predecessors with elements of acoustic pop ... warped Middle Eastern flavours, weirdly joyful and layered melodies, and robotically beautiful, Stereolab-type vocal cut-ups and loops". Neil Strauss described it in The New York Times as a "precious mix of light orchestration, inward-gazing songwriting and post-rock experimentation". It provided two singles, "Amnesia" and "She Wears a Mask". Tommo Eitelhuber felt the tracks had "enough unique charm to make them noticable [sic]". During the next year Walker co-produced, engineered and mixed an album, A Minor Revival (August 2003), for folk rock duo, Sodastream. He also supplied electric and slide guitars, viola and keyboards. Machine Translations released a seven-track extended play, Love on the Vine (late 2003). The title track had backing vocals by Clare Bowditch and Karen Tua, Tua also provided keyboards on another track. The EP was followed by a studio album, Venus Traps Fly, in May 2004. For Eitelhuber the album was "even more disappointing" than Happy with it being "pleasantly enjoyable in the short term, but repetitive and uninspiring in the long term". However Bernard Zuel of The Sydney Morning Herald noted that Walker's "language is elliptical, the emotions often very clear but their carriage wrapped up in lines that remain elusive" and that he "used more concrete images for the decidedly concrete emotions of his characters" for "another sublime pop album". By February 2004 Walker had joined Clare Bowditch