A gaggle of faceless musicians toting horns, keys, and a secondhanddrum kit shuffle into a practice space and start tuning up. Over thenoise, a disembodied voice intones, "This... is supreme understanding."A sitar player accompanied by an army of other Hindustani classicalinstrumentalists show up. Without a word, the collected players beginto play, with the mysterious spiritual presence guiding the session.Gurus in the background occasionally drop nuggets of knowledge andteases of enlightenment in between sets.That is S.E.V.A., a joint project between Gone Beyond and one-timeteenage hip hop prodigy Mumbles. After making his mark with productioncredits on A Book of Human Language (with Aceyalone on the mic),Mumbles spent several years exploring mysticism and religioustraditions, studying spirituality with gurus in the US and abroad. Whathe found—enlightenment, total consciousness or maybe just some reallygreat hash—S.E.V.A. itself is a New Age double entendre: a Sanskritword meaning "selfless service," and an acronym for the credo "spiritevolves via awareness." And luckily, that's the only bit of what somemight label "New Age bullshit" to pop up on the entire record.
Whateverthe music's intent or holier-than-thou bent, Mumbles and Gone Beyonduse their production skills to more or less faithfully emulate theaforementioned uncommon jam session, with numerous other sounds andmoods included in the scope. Jazz and R&B drum breaks anchorcascading strings and otherworldly flutes. Sparsely arranged meditativeand moody moments suddenly give way to sonorous rises, and there arelight-hearted moments of whimsy, accompanying the spoken mumbo-jumboand keeping it palatable. However, these moments are like lush fertilehills in between long desolate valleys. Far too much of SEVA is emptylike this, as if the lead player forgets his bit while his backingband faithfully plays along waiting for him to remember—or if someoneforgot to include the vocal track in the final mix of a hip hop joint.Such tantalizing but ultimately empty (maybe it's a spiritual message)vestiges are all the suffering patient ears left thirsty from A Book ofHuman Language Days get. It almost seems as if Mumbles is torturingthem, stringing them along with drum sequences and killer loops thatany fool could lay a rhyme over, and then pulling back to themeditiative grooves, leaving the hip hop set blueballed while offendingjazz cats with the empty spaces' wasted potential.
Maybe there'ssomething I'm missing—I might not be on S.E.V.A.'s spiritualconsciousness trip. For my part, I'll remember Carl Spackler'swords—"Gunga-gulunga"—while I wait for Mumbles to return to the fold ofMCs. They miss him, and if Mumbles' search for consciousness can't findthat out, he's meditating under the wrong tree.
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