The debut Australian tour of an ‘intergalactic house’ producer Man Power

In 2018, Resident Advisor referred to Man Power as ‘intergalactic house music’. That description is as close as anyone has ever come to describing his sound. In the time Man Power has existed, as an alias of Newcastle’s Geoff Kirkwood, it’s been challenging to pin down what he is all about. 

One look at his impressive discography should give you an idea of what he is about musically. It includes Life & Death, Hivern Discs, Optimo Trax, ESP Institute and Correspondent, alongside his own Me Me Me and newly minted Now Now Now imprints. His club bookings include the world’s best, and he has played everywhere from Panorama Bar to Glasgow’s Sub Club. His debut Australian tour has been a long time coming, and this February the wait is finally over…

What makes Man Power difficult to categorise is what makes him so vital – each record, each set and each remix is unique. Drawing on house, techno, Italo, disco, post-punk, new wave and beyond, Kirkwood’s ability to bend well-worn genre tropes to his own will is impressive. Occasionally, he’ll even decontextualise embarrassing pop records to rapturous responses. As with any DJ/Producer biog, this doesn’t quite work unless it contains name drops aplenty so, as a fun game, try to unearth another artist in electronic music who has had a firm thumbs up from such a disparate bunch of artists like Ben UFO, Elton John, Bryan Ferry, Andrew Weatherall, DJ Harvey and DJ Bone recently…