Full details for Portable's next album have been revealed.
It's titled Alan Abrahams (the South African-born producer's real name), and the 11-track LP will be the first Portable album since 2011. News of the record surfaced earlier this year when !K7 A&R Will Saul stated that he was "thrilled to be able to sign Alan and his Portable moniker to !K7." The label has now revealed that Alan Abrahams is due out on August 19th, saying that the LP is the producer's "most complete and personal statement yet."
We caught up with Abrahams for a quick chat ahead of the release of his new album.You released your last album as Portable almost five years ago. What's changed for you since then?
The most obvious change for me is a change of location—I swapped Berlin for Paris two years ago. The upcoming album straddles the two atmospheres, as I composed roughly half of it in Berlin and the other half in Paris.
On another more personal level, I gave up drugs and alcohol. There came a point where I was touring so much, and it's widely known that drugs and alcohol are freely available to artists. It just became too destructive. I found myself trapped in a loop of abuse and recovery, and one day I just had to make a decision to stop. It was roughly five years ago. So the fruits of this transformation are encoded within the music that directly followed.
At what stage of the music-making process do vocals enter the picture? Do you write lyrics to already-complete beats, or write music to fit lyrics you've already thought of?
They start off as two totally separate processes. Quite often I jot down one-line ideas that I flesh out afterwards into a more traditional lyrical structure, and save or store it somewhere for later use. I compose music with no particular lyric in mind, but just grow it organically and then test and see which lyric would fit best within the mood of the composition. I then sculpt and morph the two pieces into one consistent whole.
How up-to-date do you stay with modern house and techno? Are you paying much attention to the more dance floor-focused music coming out on labels you've released on?
I try and stay as up-to-date as possible and pay attention not only to the labels I have released on, but also other newer labels.
Stream album cut "Say It's Going To Change."
Tracklist
01. Your Warrior feat. Kinoo, Aletchko & Johannes Schön
02. Say It's Going To Change
03. Closer ft. Knox Chandler
04. More Than
05. As For Me feat. Kinoo & Aletchko
06. Bondage
07. The Loneliness Of The Long Distance Drinker
08. Séraphin
09. The Year My Dreams Come True
10. This Frozen Lake feat. Kinoo
11. Standby
!K7 will release Alan Abrahams on August 19th, 2016.