Despite being made in the dusty air of cramped rehearsal spaces and tiny apartments of Helsinki, Finland, the debut album by Red Carpet plays like a fresh pop record. Halfway gets it's rough edges from the indie aesthetic of the last couple of decades, while the songwriting shares the classic tradition of 60's and 70's pop. No wonder the Finnish press has been comparing Red Carpet's music to that of Teenage Fanclub, Buffalo Springfield or The Beatles.

Ask each of the band members to give their description of the music they make and the names that come up are all different. Samuli Toivonen admits being influenced by Galaxie 500 and Veli Kauppinen describes a song of his as an amalgam of Stereolab and Kraftwerk, while to Petri Nakari the album has the feel of Todd Rundgren's Something/Anything. All three of them have written songs for the album, and whoever wrote the song sings it too. That might lead one to wonder how the work of three songwriters can co-exist on a 12 track album without sounding out of place. Even the boys themselves probably won't be able to tell you how it all works together, but it does. As far as the performances go the collective effort is very simple; for example, when Veli sings lead the other two harmonise, and so forth.

Late in the year 2001, the trio met each other through the camaraderie shared by indie-minded bands playing around Helsinki. For this reason, Red Carpet has jokingly been referred to as a "super-group". Petri plays guitar in Sister Flo, Samuli is the bass player in ultrasport and Veli plays different instruments in Laidun. They soon found out that in addition to those three bands they each had their own solo projects. The idea was born to try and weld the offshoots together, and a few months afterwards the new band - with a host of guest musicians borrowed from other bands around Helsinki and Tampere - started recording their first album by themselves in ultrasport's rehearsal space.

Independent bands without record deals aren't known to spend several months of time on their releases. "A year in the studio" is one of those phrases usually associated with big name acts with too much money to burn. But that's roughly the time that it took for Red Carpet to finish their debut. Much of it was down to the members being busy with their other bands. But although the sessions were sometimes far apart from each other, the songs benefitted greatly from the slower pace of recording and mixing. There was time to try out new ideas, to let the music find it's own form.

The album's many musical flavours are well evident on the three tracks in the middle of the set. The low key rendering of Petri's Sick Of Dreaming is Red Carpet at it's most vulnerable, it's twin acoustic guitars balanced out with a deadpan synthesizer. Veli's Model picks up the tempo with a Kraftwerk-inspired lyric and one of the catchiest tunes on the album. Then we're straight into the album's title song, where Samuli's acoustic pop strum is given a jazzy treatment.

Halfway has been released as a collaboration between two record labels. One of them is Rhythm Barrel Records, which has been instrumental in spreading the word about Finnish guitar-based music for a few years now. It has released material by bands like Boomhauer, Bridget, Ben's Diapers and Treeball, in addition to the essential compilation of unsigned Finnish guitar pop, Meet The Scene. The other label involved in the collaboration is Han Soo Voice. This homegrown label's main releases have so far been the two EP's and an album by the acclaimed indie-pop fivesome Sister Flo.

Red Carpet contacts: www.hansoovoice.com/redcarpet, e-mail: [email protected], tel: +358 40 7782016 / Petri
Rhythm Barrel Records: www.geocities.com/rhythmbarrel
Han Soo Voice: www.hansoovoice.com