This song was recorded live, with the band Ninth.
Part of the instrumentation was composed along with the song "Godsped", and in the beginning, they actually were the same song. But that's a long time ago, and I was barely a teenager.
As usual, the song evolved over time, and went through several bands and lineups.
The sound of "Assassin" is based around the fact that it was recorded live, but I try to break my rules as much as I can, from song to song. For example, I love the sound of an indie band just as much as an american rock production. Not that it's anything special about that.
There's obviously a reason why Motown funk sounds different than a punk record (other than the musicians, the agenda and the expression of the song), sonically there is physics behind it too, something that audio engineers and producers use to their advantage. Sound waves has their own good and bad sides that varies with tempo, volume, expression and so on. In music production, this is a language by itself, that is used to communicate to a group of people, with certain values. Or in other words: an audience, or in other words: a market.
But I can't control myself when it comes to these things, give the funk drums a punk sound, and add lots of real reverberation. Give the hard rock guitar a synth/clean sound. Chop up the drums in the middle and add some crazy analog filters. Give the bass guitar some distortion and lots of treble. Add to that the slow and mellow vocals, to what was once a live recording.
Personally, I see music genres as dead. All of them! When it becomes defined as a genre it's already captured and become a part of the museum. That doesn't mean that I don't love the music. It's just not something that I would pursue artistically.
But there's one great thing that all these genres have in common, something I do want to keep alive: The people behind them never gave a shit about how things should be done.
Drums: Bjørn Tore Kronen Taranger, Geir Satre