Growing up near Dulles airport, Kathy Compton longed to be on every plane she saw. So when she became a jazz pop singer, she wanted to take her shows overseas.

She started looking in France. The search led her to a Web site for musicians, where local punk-turned-electro artist Thierry Holweck had posted some local venues.

She said thanks; he said stop by when you visit. And her “one-week trip turned into a two-year sabbatical” when Holweck asked her for help pronouncing the words for his cover of Joy Division’s “Love Will Tear Us Apart.” They ended up singing it together, and the single reached the top five on FranceInter, a French radio station, in May 2007. Then, as Panda Transport, they released their airy, synth-driven full-length “Plush Mechanique” last April.

Although the two halves of Panda Transport came from different “universes” as far as culture and genre, Holweck explains in a thick accent, they founded a friendship based on open minds.

They gave each other’s music a try, and through the shared language of melody, started to bond “sort of like a malfunctioning brother and sister unit,” Compton says from her home, now in Charlottesville. “We tend to knock heads.”

But shared tastes in Postal Service, Air, Zero 7 and Feist convinced them that Compton’s airy voice was a natural fit on top of Holweck’s bass-driven beeps and bleeps, and that there was a market for their lo-fi electro-pop.

They collaborated for those two years in France, laying a musical foundation that now spreads across the globe for most of the year.

“I listen to a band I like and send a song to Kathy,” Holweck says. “I send all kinds of music.”

Or, she adds, “He will come up with an electronic idea, a base for a song. It’s usually very sparse. He’ll find a tiny little melody in it and sometimes he’ll sing it. I’ll listen to his gibberish and try to extract lyrics from that.”

Other times she sculpts what he sends into her own song and shoots it back, rolling the idea through several “reincarnations” before it’s show-worthy.

“We don’t need to go to a recording studio,” Holweck says. The music-making process is in their hands — or at least on their laptops.

Panda Transport reconnects for a couple American tours and several European tours a year. November will be their first tour to Sweden, where their label is located.

This summer, though, they’re covering Compton’s home state. The tour includes a stop at The Artful Dodger on July 27. The free show with opener Nate Bolling starts at 8:30 p.m.

After a solo career, both are grateful to have help filling the space onstage.

“To be on the road alone, sometimes it’s not very cool,” Holweck says.

Toys, “the trademark of the band,” will also join them onstage, he says. The duo use toy instruments to supplement sound bites.

“Well,” Compton clarifies, “if you can call a stuffed bear that sings a toy instrument.”

Get transported

Panda Transport will play a free show at The Artful Dodger on July 27. Nate Bolling will open at 8:30 p.m.