One thing that every one agrees on when it comes to All Fours is that the cover art is simply amazing. This is thanks to artist Phil Pascuzzo, a graphic designer (and drummer for pals Scientific Maps) whose amazing portfolio (which includes books and posters, along with album designs) can be viewed @ www.pepcostudio.com.

When we first approached Phil towards the end of 2009, we gave him some rough mixes of what we recorded in the Temple and the barest of frameworks. We wanted something to emphasize the “four quadrants” aspect of Swamp Baby – when we perform live, it becomes more apparent how important each member of Swamp Baby is to the overall sound and mood, and how we listen and feed off each other.

I did send one visual idea to Phil, an illustration from the recently published Red Book of Carl Jung.

I first learned of Jung through the work of his disciple of sorts Joseph Campbell, whose interview by Bill Moyers in The Power of Myth had a very formative effect on my view of culture, religion, even the nature of the world itself (it helped that I absorbed it at the very impressionable age of 12 or so).

We recorded all of the album’s basic tracks in the same temple where Meg and I were married (wedding date: May 10, 2008). This same space has been home to drum circles, weddings, and other celebrations  – so the space itself holds a lot of meaning for many people.

So we wanted to reflect the four parts that make the whole of Swamp Baby, and also something more archetypal and shared by the much wider community. We think Phil Pascuzzo succeeded brilliantly in helping us achieve that with the album cover and design.  We are fortunate enough to have a few words from the artist himself about the project:

"I was definitely aiming for a psychedelic feel for the cover.
Through color I wanted the cover to look earthy yet vibrant."


"The songs that I heard before starting the project had a very dreamlike,
mystical, and atmospheric quality to them. It also sounded very textural,
which I tried to capture in the layered design of the cover. 

The suggestion of using the Carl Jung image from his Red Book as a
springboard was a very appropriate one. I used the circle with cross symbol
from that piece on all the cover options that I worked on." 


"In Paganism, it means Earth, which fit perfectly to me, since the music
feels organic and growing. The four sections of the circle could also
represent each of the four players,tying into Jung's ideas of individualism
and collective consciousness."
Inside Jacket
Thanks so much, Phil - we'll have to do it again some time . . .

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