Behind The Artworks: VAJRA - VAJRA (2022)

We approached our dear friend, Tas Limur, who worked with Tool and Volto, and is the bassist for the band Kolm. He is my brotha from anotha motha, and brings such a beautiful and deep perception and appreciation of the realms in which we exist. We were in LA for NAMM right before Covid hit, and that is where and when we shot the photo. The name of the EP is Irkalla, which is the Sumerian word for the Underworld, and we wanted to embody that concept into the art. Since this EP is one third of a trilogy of albums exploring consciousness, we created a triptych, and what you see on the Irkalla album cover is only the bottom third of the full photo. Tas, assisted by Carlos Oropeza, enlisted a ridiculously talented team to assist in creating this dark space. Dee Ann Morales designed and installed this beautiful set with symbolic ritual items placed in the dirt and Erin Nakashima did the makeup. The writing is Cuneiform, the Sumerian language, and spells Irkalla. I actually taught myself how to write "Irkalla" in cuneiform, and then reached out to Dr. Irving Finkel, one of the world's leading Assyriologists, who works out of the British Museum, to correct my spelling. I apparently had one letter that needed to be corrected. We love the album cover so much, that we reference it in the "Crown or Crucify" video. Check it out. That video is a story for another time, along with hauling 20 bags of organic dirt up five flights of stairs to our apartment and emptying them into our living room.