J Walker, the main force behind Melbourne’s Machine Translations is a consummate songwriter and musician, sharing his unique style of artsy-pop with the early punters who overcame the Wednesday blues to come to the Troubadour tonight. Alternating between acoustic and electric guitar with loop pedal, Walker managed to create a wall of sound that weaved together various layers of guitar that was fairly hypnotic.

While playing sans-bass guitarist and drummer tonight, The Brown Birds from Windy Hill still succeeded in justifying their claim that they are like listening to Neil Young and Crazy Horse if Neil Young was a surfer. Playing a swag of tunes from their debut album, Three Sails to the Wind, The Brown Birds prove that they can still summon up the power of rootsy-surfey-bluesy-country goodness even without their rhythm section.

Heralding from Dalarna, Sweden, was tonight’s folk master and finger-picking extraordinaire, Kristian Matsson, better known as The Tallest Man on Earth. Think of early Bob Dylan mixed with Hank William* and Nick Drake, as well as the obvious comparisons to the other Swedish-guitar-picking-songster, Jose Gonzalez and you’re getting somewhere in the vicinity of musical genre that The Tallest Man on Earth purveys.

While his moniker is a bit of a misnomer (he’s actually quite a petite guy, go figure), Kristian certainly knows how to fill up a stage with only his guitar and a microphone for company. Stalking from corner to corner, eyeballing and smiling at audience members gave the impression that this is a guy whose frenetic energy and slightly manic edge gives a compelling flavour to his onstage personality.

Standout songs included It Will Follow The Rain from his self-titled EP, which also has a great YouTube video clip, as well as I Won’t Be Found, Where Do My Bluebird Fly_ and Into The Stream from recent LP release, Shallow Grave. One thing for certain, he had the crowd entirely transfixed for the hour or so that he played. If you haven’t checkout him out, you’d be well advised to spend some time acquainting yourself with The Tallest Man on Earth.