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01. PORTABLE - Ebb And Flow
02. PORTABLE - Notions Of Slow And Fast Are Set At Nought
03. PORTABLE - All Eject
04. PORTABLE - Down Stream
05. PORTABLE - Thought In Action
06. PORTABLE - Temporal Distortion
07. PORTABLE - Tempura
08. PORTABLE - Typhoon
09. PORTABLE - The Opened Book
ARTIST
TITLE
Version
FORMAT
CD

LABEL
CATALOG #
SCAPE 029CD SCAPE 029CD
GENRE
RELEASE DATE
6/21/2005

Version, Alan Abrahams' (aka Portable) second full-length album, is simultaneously archaic and totally futuristic, avidly exploring the fringes of techno and house. A resident of London via Capetown/South Africa, a superficial listen to Portable will reveal close parallels to the hyper-modern splinter-funk of the likes of Sutekh and his Context label where Portable also released his first record. On this release, futuristic elements that sound like miniscule spikeless particles strung together, pop up and then disappear within the tiniest fraction of a second, but are not relegated to the barrenness of micro-sampling techno. The archaic aspects of Portable's sound become most apparent in the unique sources Abrahams has unearthed for this release: reassembled field recording fragments of ancient African polyrhythms and syncopes. These snippets offer blurred glimpses of the jungle or a campfire, with the crackling taking on the character of ur-beats. Using modern audio software to digitally rework and filter these samples, they are given new shine, while preserving their old heritage -- their lore. The resulting sound is far from the "world music techno" some may have feared. Instead, Abrahams' Version represents a truly unfettered Afro-futuristic variant of techno that elegantly and serenely circumnavigates any prevalent beats, sub-scenes and trends. Abrahams allows syncopated bass drums, like dancehall rhythms, to mess with the static matrix of conventional 4/4 signatures while adding a polyrhythmic flow to the proceedings. Nevertheless, Version is also deep, soft, round and organic. Here "Portable" refers to Alan's home, often no more than the soft glow of a laptop in the twilight of a hotel room, somewhere in this world.