[8] His lo-fi (music) approach included using traditional instruments: drums, guitars and keyboards; together with less conventional ones: broken piano (its front removed and strings played directly), oud, and electric erhu.
[13] Hans Uhad of Stylus Magazine felt it showed a "juxtaposition of slow burning, moody, Codeine-like numbers with deft, mildly psychotic stabs at fusing traditional Celtic music with his own burnt version of Americana and flamenco".
[9][13] For touring Walker expanded the band with Guy Freer on accordion and keyboards; Marianthe Loucataris on drums; and Jonathan Nix on bass and samples.
[7] Comes with a Smile's Matt Dornan noted there is "no disguising the homemade feel of both music and sparse packaging, but there's certainly a twisted core to this antipodean walkabout through sonic pastures new".
[7] Walker was joined in the studio by Freer on saxophone and accordion; Loucataris on lead vocals, drums and percussion; Nix on double bass; White on clarinet, broken piano and percussion; and Gemma Clare on cello; Kazuaki Nakahara on banjo, electric and classical guitars; Elmo Reed on lead vocals and electric guitar; and Melissa Owl.
[22] Bad Shapes provided "Poor Circle", a "radio-friendly" single which was "[i]rresistibly fresh, bent and poppy" according to The Age's Jo Roberts.
[7][22] 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".
[25] During the next year Walker co-produced, engineered and mixed an album, A Minor Revival (August 2003), for folk rock duo, Sodastream.
[2] By February 2004 Walker had joined Clare Bowditch & the Feeding Set on erhu, electric guitar, rhodes synthesiser and viola.
The group included Bowditch on vocals and guitar; and her domestic partner Marty Brown (of Sodastream and Art of Fighting) on multiple instruments and producing; they recorded an album, Autumn Bone.
[33] Michael Dwyer of The Age saw their gig at the Corner Hotel and was impressed by Walker's "considered approach to live dynamics, arrangements beautifully designed around his conversational vocal style" and he was "a pretty flash guitarist, his modal solos and big, chunky rhythm freak-outs bringing plenty of excitement".
[37] Zuel noted it had "an acoustic, low-profile feel" while mostly "the mood is languorous" however "there is menace in 'A Ghost Rides' and insistent percussion bringing on some disturbance in 'Extress'".
[4] On 8 June 2005 ABC Digital Radio broadcast a cover version of Willie Dixon's "Spoonful" by Machine Translations with C. W. Stoneking as the first part of The DiG Australian Blues Project.
[45] Dan Rule of The Age felt it was "stunningly organic" as Walker "weaves a shimmering layer of acoustic nuance and texture throughout".
[4] Walker composed the score and Machine Translations contributed to the soundtrack for ABC-TV drama series East of Everything (March 2008 – September 2009).
[54][55] Graeme Blundell of The Australian previewed an ABC-TV documentary, Then the Wind Changed (February 2012), on the Black Saturday bushfires and noted that it is "a beautifully made film, crafted with compassion, alternating the sounds of destruction with the silence left behind, intercut with noise of rebuilding lives and structures and heightened with a compelling score from [Walker]".
[56] Walker also worked for ABC-TV on Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries (February 2012 – December 2013) composing the theme music and score.
[58][59] Walker had produced tracks on albums for Dan's earlier band the Alpha Males: The Tabloid Blues (March 2004) and Drowning in the Fountain of Youth (August 2006).
[61] Beat Magazine's Chris Girdler sees Walker chronicling the "complications and anxieties of growing older" with life's "highs and lows" captured by "its gentle, harmonious songs harbouring a sense of discord and foreboding".