Believing (extended) from Believing by Portable
Producer, vocalist and experimentalist Alan Abrahams has been releasing music under his Portable and
Bodycode guises for twenty years. Seamlessly forging his South-African heritage with a futurist house
sensibility, he has explored a consistently warm, lived-in and evocative sound through countless albums, EPs
and live performances. Now based in Paris, following stints in London, Lisbon and Berlin, Abrahams adapts his
assured taste to a brand new label, ‘Khoikhoi’, named after the pre-colonial tribes in the South African region
where Abrahams grew up & roughly translates as "the first men".
Having previously released extensively on celebrated imprints - including Perlon, Ghostly International, !K7, Dial
and the Süd Electronic label he founded in 2002 with Lerato Khathi aka Lakuti - Khoikhoi launches with
‘Believing’, a new EP of Portable material that proves to be as hopeful, honest and touching as Abraham’s finest
work.
Although characterised by the melancholy often worn on his sleeve, Abrahams' productions are equipped with
the sort of rhythmic precision that can only arise from years on the fringes of the world’s finest dancefloors.
This knowledge and deft drum-handling is executed perfectly on the title track, ‘Believing’, which spans more
than ten-minutes rich in sentiment and percussive pleasure. As a positive note on which to start the Abrahams'
project. the track is both a look on how far life has progressed from his modest childhood in South Africa and a
warm message of hope and perseverance. A truncated dub version without Abraham’s vocal contribution
proves equally compelling in it’s perfectly measured reductions.
‘Le Morne’ meanwhile explores the tense, lower end of Portable’s sound, navigating a spacious reflection, with
that same sense of wistfulness creeping through gaps of light in the track's heavy bass frequencies.
Tracklist
| 1. | Believing (extended) | 11:08 |
