Portable

Alan Abrahams AKA Portable AKA Bodycode has been in motion his whole life—growing up in South Africa, coming of age in London, decamping to Lisbon and finally settling in Berlin—and his deeply syncopated brand of electronic dance music has evolved with every step of the journey.

His formative years were spent in an impoverished Cape Town township ironically tagged “Beverly Hills”, and to the backbeat of the first wave of Chicago house records he emerged out of the ruins of a post-apartheid South Africa. Inspired musically, yet frustrated geographically, he relocated to London in 1997.

In London, Abrahams began recording as Portable, the experimental, atmospheric project that acts a living link between the indigenous sounds of his youth, and those first records whose futuristic aesthetic broadened his horizons. He founded the Süd Electronic label with his partner Lerato and released a string of 12" releases. A succession of full-length albums followed - Cycling and Futuristic Experiments #005 on Background, Version on ~scape records, and the Powers of Ten for Süd Electronic in 2007. A rich and expansive record, Powers of Ten further explored his African heritage through a new lexicon of sonic influences, acquired from his time living in Portugal.

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