Biography
My Little Airport, the very picture of cuteness, consists of a male-female indie-pop pair from Hong Kong that crafts delicate twee songs in both English and Cantonese. Their material comes across as even more fanciful and mischievous than the usual gentle indie groups such as Belle & Sebastian, relying on private jokes and breezy frivolity for much of its content. The words themselves resemble diary excerpts, while the band’s humor appears plainly in track names such as “Leo, Are You Still Jumping Out of Windows in Expensive Clothes” and “I Don’t Know How to Download Good AV Like Iris Does,” the latter a lighthearted piece concerning online pornography. Nicole and P first crossed paths at Shuren University in 2001 during journalism and communication studies; afterward they would rehearse guitar at a friend’s music shop—an everyday habit later immortalized in the song “Josephine’s Shop.” Two years after that meeting they played their debut concert at the Warehouse Teenage Club and began to gain traction within Hong Kong’s independent-music circles. In 2004 the duo issued their spare, charming debut album, The OK Thing to Do on Sunday Is to Toddle in the Zoo, on their self-run label Harbour, employing only electric violin, guitar, and vocals. The following year, after putting out four additional acts’ recordings and securing modest airplay for their own work, they delivered Becoz I Was Too Nervous at That Time. Expanding beyond local borders, My Little Airport signed with Spain’s Elefant Records in 2007; the imprint assembled a fourteen-song collection drawn from the first two albums and titled Zoo Is Sad, People Are Cruel, prompting the pair to schedule a European tour shortly afterward.