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In 2002 Chicago's music scene was suffering from a crippling ennui. The city was hemorrhaging talent to the West and East coasts and people were falling asleep in their ashtrays. Even the drugs were bland. On the surface, the breathing seemed shallow and labored, but just beneath, men and women were plotting quietly against the city's torpor.
Aaron Miller and Joe Cassidy were two such men. One blistering Chicago summer night, Miller stumbled upon a Cassidy solo performance. He instinctively realized that the Irishmans songwriting, epic and heartbreaking while maintaining a pop sensibility, would make a compelling, albeit unlikely, bedfellow to the pushy, angular sounds that had been fermenting in his head.
Cassidy had moved to Chicago from his hometown of Belfast to record an album and found himself ensconced in the indie music scene as both a respected artist, and music producer. Miller and Cassidy began an irreverent collaboration, mercilessly slicing and dicing each others ideas, producing their own demos, and realizing that the two of them together were creating something far greater than the sum of its parts.
Merritt Lear was a fuck-voiced singer who had the ability to make every single person in the audience utterly certain she was personally singing to them and, what's more, wanting to plant tantalizing kisses down their neck. She had worked musically with Cassidy for some time and hearing the music coming from the new collaboration, approached the duo with her four-string Fender and a song. They threw it into the mix to see what would happen and it all came together.
David Golitko had been playing with Miller since high school. If keyboard playing were a girl, his would be the type you wouldn't take home to Mother. Golitko could take a lackluster section of a song and spit back an inferno. He also brought a formidable amount of technical expertise which paved the way for the band's trademark three-dimensional live sequencing.
Alex Kemp was new to Chicago after much tour-heavy work in his native New York. Kemp had arrived an accomplished composer, producer and live bass player, but upon Lear playing him some of the early demos, he knew this was what he had been searching for. His experience in the dark art of engineering and mixing truly completed the picture.
Not only was the line-up established, but they were now a fully self-sufficient production team. It was time to play.
Assassins immediately made an impact on the Chicago scene with a sound that evoked some Ritalin starved orphan of Primal Scream, New Order, and Brainiac. They were soon opening for Duran Duran, Soundtrack of our Lives, Interpol, Jet, Adult., French Kicks, The Walkmen, VHS or Beta? and Hard-Fi. The band was also handpicked by Peter Hook to be the sole opener at one of only four New Order performances in America.
Having earned their stripes on stage, the time had come to lay down an album. Having developed much of the record in their own home studios, the band went to New York, enlisting the help of veteran producer Stephen Hague and Radiohead engineer Graeme Stewart to complete the album. The record was mixed with the help of Serban Ghenea (Neptunes, N.E.R.D.) and Dave Bascombe (Soulwax, Depeche Mode, Goldfrapp).
Other notable projects along the way have included remixes for Tommie Sunshine, Kill Hannah, Greenskeeper, Michelle Williams of Destinys Child, and collaborations with effetely lovable British producer Damien Mendis (Gorillaz, Electric Six).
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