As the album took shape, and I walked around listening to mixes of the 17 tracks, I started wondering about the cover imagery. Should the photo convey a sense of the slow pace of the music? That would be good, I thought, because then nobody could claim that they had no idea the music they bought was going to be slow… A picture of a tree, or something even slower, like a rock or a glacier?

One morning, after a night of rain showers, I noticed a lot of snails on the sidewalk. I carefully stepped over and around them on my way to a coffeeshop.

On my way home I saw this snail, and was surprised to see the clear dotted line of mucus behind it. I had always assumed a snail would traverse rough territory by emmiting a constant trail of mucus. I laughed, because I imagined the snail, noticing rough terrain underneath, would emmit mucus, then move an inch, then think “ouch!” when the mucus ran out, then drop more mucus, and so on…

Snail equals slow, I thought, and took a photo with my iPhone. How perfect!

I sent the image to my friend Richard Holbrook, who offered to design the cover. So, thank you snail, and thank you Richard, I think the cover turned out perfect!