Portable

Who is 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 Berlin and finally settling in Lisbon and his deeply syncopated brand of electronic dance music has evolved with every step of the journey.

Emerging out of the ruins of a post apartheid South Africa and rising from a slum in Cape Town, producer Alan Abrahams has made a name for himself in the electronic music by way of his Bodycode and Portable projects. He started his discovery of dance music listening to the backbeat of the first wave of Chicago house records, 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 home base in Portugal.