Portable grew out of the ruins of the post-apartheid era of South Africa, being part of the generation that was to bring about the freedom of Nelson Mandela and all that followed for his country. He is a celebrated live act. Inspired musically, yet frustrated geographically, he relocated to London in 1997. In London, Alan Abrahams began recording as Portable, the experimental, atmospheric project that acts a living link between the indigenous African sounds of his youth, and those first records whose futuristic aesthetic broadened his horizons