Release date: 18 September 2015

Martin Stender Saxophone

Lars Greve Saxophones And Clarinets

Mathias Holm Keyboards

Victor Dybbroe Percussion

Mads Forsby Drums

Airports are a unique human habitat: places of wonder and excitement that offer the magical ability to be standing next to someone in the morning and on the other side of the world by the afternoon. They are, in JG Ballard’s phrase, gateways to infinite possibilities. They also attract emotions, resonating with the joy of meeting, the sadness of parting, fear and exhilaration. In Fables Girls in Airports synthesize these emotional states in a concise and profoundly personal way.

Girls in Airports’ story is as peculiar as their name and follows the skewed logic of the airport. Formed by a group of friends and fellow students from Copenhagen, initially gigs were local and on the small side – parties, small clubs. One early concert was in a record shop in the hip Nørrebro district where the band is based. The shop was tiny and soon packed out. It happened that two promoters were in town, a Chinese agent and one from Brazil. Both had heard about this new band and come down to check them out – unfortunately they couldn’t get in but must have been impressed by what they saw and heard through the window as the band were offered tours in China and Brazil. Without any management or a record deal Girls in Airports had become an international touring sensation. South Korea, New York, Germany, Portugal, London and Belfast soon followed.

Fables is founded on stories like this – stories inspired by locality – the collective experience of living in Copenhagen, the musicians’ lives, stories of touring, hours in the band bus. Another story concerns the name – a random selection, apparently, but one that has caused consternation for taxi drivers meeting them at arrivals. Imagine holding that sign saying Girls in Airports…

Fables is at least partly influenced by the great bass player Charlie Mingus – Mingus was an early working title. His composition Fables of Faubus was playing in the background as the album was made – perhaps not directly influencing the music but working insidiously on the sub-conscious creative process. The way that Mingus rehearsed with the famous Jazz Workshop and the way he played with a band rather than the usual loose collection of musicians common at the time resonates with the collective ethos of Girls in Airports and links their musical influences to the cultural and intellectual experience of tolerant, free thinking Copenhagen.

Girls in Airports is very much a collective, and this is evident in the way they make music. As Martin Stender, the main composer and saxophonist, says: “A tune starts with me playing an unfinished idea on the piano. I am not a pianist so it sounds like a children’s song or a very slow jazz ballad. Keyboard player Mathias will immediately sit down and do a much better version without looking at the notes I have scribbled down. Then the drummers add a rhythmic layer that changes the whole thing into something else and then saxophonist Lars will make all of us follow him into some third place we’ve never been before. It is quite easy to write new tunes for this band”.