It’s the final night of the Viking invasion at Pizza Express as Girls In Airports conclude the Sounds of Denmark series of gigs there. From the opening bars of Fables, with the sublime pairing of tenor sax and bass clarinet playing in unison, I was hooked!

Girls In Airports are an unorthodox line-up.  On wind, we have Martin Stender on tenor sax and Lars Grieve on bass clarinet, soprano clarinet and tenor sax; their playing, whether in unison or in antagonistic opposition, is almost symbiotic. Mathias Holm on keyboards, covers a lot of ground; sometimes a simple bass line to hold a piece together and sometimes a pure wall of sound. The final element is composed of Victor Dybbroe on percussion and Mads Forsby on drums, this double percussive whammy ensures that there is a generous, varied and well-balanced rhythmic element behind the melodies.

The second offering we received was Kaikoura, a deliciously low-key piece with same pairing of tenor sax with bass clarinet over trance-like keyboards and sympathetic percussion. Broken Stones was a shift - over a simple beat the keyboards were more dominant and the volume crept up until we were immersed in the soundscape.  Albert Khan was more balladic, developing and migrating across several phases, both slow and fast. This was a long piece with Grieve taking us through his gamut of instruments, often in beautiful discord with Stender’s sax, and included a percussive ‘solo’ from Dybbroe and Forsby.  A beautiful piece!

After the break, Aftentur (evening stroll) was an ethereal piece with a trancing pulse with a double saxophone melody. Following pieces included Aeiki and Need a Light.  For an (un-named) encore we had a very different, almost carnivalistic piece.

Girls In Airports have been together since 2009 and have four albums to their name with a fifth, live album in the making. This shows in their tightness and the balanced sound they have – rhythmic and melodic, jazzy/indie but often with a folky feel to the melodies. This was my first exposure to them but definitely not my last. A beautiful evening!

Photos: Grae Shennan