Maid of Gold (2003)
Classic Status
By Lewis S.
In my darkest times and latest hours, I find refuge in what I imagine to be the greater discontent of my favorite instrumental artists. Others may try to listen to something with sticky “pep” or forcefully uplifting bubbles, but I prefer to stew in brood sauce and wallow in the sad mustard of something bitter, determined, and beautiful.
Villain Accelerate is a Canadian instrumental group composed of Sixtoo and Stigg of the Dump. Maid of Gold represents the best work to be heard from either artist, although Sixtoo is known for his similarly dark-themed hip hop instrumentals. Maid of Gold is “wabi-sabi,” an aesthetic in Japanese art that (when crudely hewn into English) means something like “sad-beautiful.” The phrase has roots in impermanence, imperfection and rust.
More than any other hip hop album I have ever heard, 2002’s Maid of Gold embodies this attractive and alienating flavor. Every instrument—sampled, struck or synthesized—sounds as if it has traveled through marshes and wastelands, stripping away any pristine clarity and leaving only the murky undertones. Take the title track: bleak, mournful and heartbreakingly dark, the song seamlessly juxtaposes tragic acoustic guitar with a deep-throated bassline, all while a synthesizer flutters throughout like a low flying mechanical banshee.
Special note must be made of the synthesized elements of Maid of Gold. Any hip hop producer knows that dragging an organic, flexible and expressive sound out of a synthesizer can be an ordeal even from an accomplished programmer/musician. The goal of organic-sounding synthwork is achieving a multifaceted tone that has as much character as would a non-electronic instrument. As a producer, Maid of Gold’s opaque instrumentation is what gives me goosebumps. The synthesized tones whir and cheep, growl and simmer. Listen to the crawling bassline in “Postcards,” and notice how it complements the high-end flyby sound.
On the other hand, there is a readily apparent looming overtone of the sampler/drum machine in Maid of Gold. No 12-bit crystal exists on the high end. This is not the work of a SP1200, but rather an understudied example of MPC work at its best. Among others, Sixtoo is a master of electronic realism when it comes to drums—especially for 2002. Forget DJ Shadow’s dated overuse of NOTE REPEAT, leave DJ Premier’s four bar loops to gather dust. In an unquoted, uncited interview, I remember Sixtoo discussing his fastidious drum practices in a passage that has been invaluable to myself and others in our attempts to create drums that vary in urgency and strength. While Maid of Gold’s drums have none of the fluttering elegance of a Bonobo, they push and pull the album’s ambient qualities into a coherent roomspace.
One nerdy detail for the perfectionists and drum programmers out there—several times throughout Maid of Gold you can hear a couple technical flaws in Sixtoo’s hi hats. There are just a couple moments when two hi hat samples play simultaneously. This creates a sound called “phasing,” where similar or identical frequencies play with a delay of only a few microseconds. You’ll hear this quivery mistake in “Postcards.” While those with a snobbishly golden ear may write this off as unprofessional, I prefer to think of it as evidence that these songs were created more linearly rather than in a traditional, loop based, cut and paste fashion.
Villain Accelerate is hip hop as viewed through a cracked and discolored attic mirror. Even the genre posturing and battle veins are underplayed, like a broken down ferris wheel or detuned music box. This is the album for the instrumental connoisseur, NOT for someone looking to party down. “Maid of Gold” is the epitome of why the genre “hip hop” has grown too broad to mean anything at all. Many of the songs from “Maid of Gold” can be found on Youtube. In a moment of disquiet or desperation, give them a sincere listen—you’ll never know a minute could be so long.
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