Man Power

Initially it felt fairly easy to pin down the Man Power project when it started off in 2014 with a bunch of growling slo mo techno records on the likes of Correspondant, Hivern Discs and Infiné. However in the intervening decade we’ve seen Geoff Kirkwood continually confound expectations, whether it be via releasing Disco and Italo records (Stamp / SKINT / Eskimo), Detroit leaning Techno (Sound As, DFA, Ene Japan), straight-up House Music (Rekids, Make A Dance, ESP Institute) or, more often than not, weirdo mutations of all of those sounds and more on an impressively wide range of big and small labels. All of this before we even get into his Techno Alias MPX, his 2 Experimental Ambient albums as Bedwetter, and his creation of a full blown Orchestral Symphony with the Royal Northern Sinfonia. Since almost the very start of the project, Man Power has been found applying this mercurial method regularly as a DJ at clubs and festivals across the world ranging from the candy coloured excesses of Burning Man Festival, to the lights-off mystery of Panorama Bar, and all points in-between. Making appearances at everything from institutions like Glastonbury, Rex Club Paris, Love International, Nitsa Barcelona, Vent Tokyo, Amnesia Ibiza and Elsewhere Brooklyn, to nameless warehouses, pub-raves, pop-ups and guerrilla parties across the UK, Europe, Central & South East Asia, The USA and Latin America. In many ways it feels as though it’s taken the last 10 years just for Kirkwood to be able to get some way towards revealing the full scope of his musical breadth both as a producer and as a DJ, but despite the somewhat open-ended approach to genre it’s still possible to pick out common threads in his choices. Throughout the Man Power project there has always been an openly earnest and emotive undercurrent that is often tempered by a contrary tendency towards the arch or absurd, and while cinematic sonics and narrative indulgences are frequent motifs, they often rub shoulders with a raw, direct and unpretentious approach that arguably borders on the naïve. At the heart of it all, whether making music, playing music, releasing other people’s music via his Me Me Me label, or throwing parties around the world, the Man Power project is simply an example of someone authentically trying to explore the full extent of their creative self, and doing so in way that may not be for everyone, but which is deeply meaningful and compelling to those who feel things the same way that he does.