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Zoonotic

by Semaphora

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    Plastic inside plastic wrapped in more plastic. Fabricated by the robots at Kunaki.

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  • Cassette + Digital Album

    Zoonotic was always designed as an album of two equal halves: now you can experience that track 5/6 volta as it was intended, on this plastic-encased plastic cassette tape manufactured by the National Audio Company.

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1.
It’s in the eyes and ears And in the way my Georgia White draws near It’s in the tails and in the coats Of all the Reds we used to fear It’s no ancestral way to be But all the symbiotic signs Pointed far across the lines we used to draw Like Moscow dogs who wander free Between the trains and metro stops Singing 얼굴이 기차표 입니다 It’s how our friendship is the tundra No one’s bothered to explore It’s how we age without the signs Our wrinkled predecessors wore Drawn ever toward neoteny Like a fate we feel is true You can hear it in our грустные голоса Like Moscow dogs who wander free Between the trains and metro stops Singing 얼굴이 기차표 입니다
2.
All across this continent Cape Horn to Quito I have sought a sentiment That could truly show Simple as it seems to be Nature takes its course Getting all the best of me Taking time by force It’s called home A place that puts the cat in catacomb A break from colour back to monochrome It traces out a circle like a palindrome It’s called love The heir to the conditioner thereof More like a turtle than a turtledove To study like an opening from Kasparov It’s called Shreds of common decency Caught between my claws Bear with this you say to me Bear without a cause Pleasing to the private sector In the Argentine Former speaker, my protector Help me share what’s mine Glaring inconsistency Stares me in the mouth High reward for atrophy In the global south Every storm that Mary weathered On her icy floe Nothing brought us back together Still at heart we know
3.
If I lie about my age There's no notary on hand to check the page And if I lie about the time There's no H.G. Wells machine to check the crime So keep your head and hands low, Washoe The selfishness that you and I know Through days when we have failed Will keep the both of us alive If there were nothing better I know I'd try to overthrow my Maslow But we'll be better off If we can think of it as all a game If my lie falls not in sight Would it drive me mad to think on when it might? If I lie and you find out Is it worth a life in the shadow of your doubt? So keep your head and hands low, Washoe The selfishness that you and I know Through days when we have failed Will keep the worst of us alive The compliment of id and ego Will rise into a new Toronto And we'll be better off If we can compromise the way we think Ignore the baby in the drink And never step outside the frame And think of it as all a game This is the kingdom where They phylum but don't compare Between one class and the next There's order but not respect Every family has one A genus who can't be undone But every species has an origin So keep your head and hands low, Washoe The selfishness that you and I know Through days when we have failed Will keep the ghost of us alive And there is nothing better I know So keep your head and hands low, Maslow But we'll be better off If we can think of it as all a game And never step outside the frame Ardipithecus would do the same
4.
S: Your eyes are open since the glowing filaments But I can’t help but wonder if you’re really awake How is the lighting done, what is the giant one That opens up the door and fills the edible lake And then turns the other way T: I know the things you fear, we have no power here But try to rest your mind from all the questions of why We’re standing on the edge of noble heritage Despite what our surroundings imply S&T: Flap your wings and roar Like a modern dinosaur T: We can live out of view of the Sun What more have we done S&T: Stand up tall and growl Like the Asian junglefowl S: If we freeze once we’re out of the cage What more could ice age S: I couldn’t help but see the vast majority Surrounding us are neither agitated nor wise They never once respond to thoughts of what’s beyond I feel no understanding when I look in their eyes They just turn the other way T: Though what you say may be, we share a destiny If there is separation it exists in your mind We all have been attached even before you hatched You missed what’s on the surface for your searching behind All: We know what you soon shall learn Born low cost and high return Best try hard to recreate Our tabula rasa state T: See how seeds meet our needs Concepts thrive as the thing itself recedes Wait, and then, out of ten Nine return again S&T: Flap your wings and roar Like a modern dinosaur T: We can live out of view of the Sun What more have we done S&T: Stand up tall and growl Like the Asian junglefowl S: If we freeze once we’re out of the cage What more could ice age
5.
Rongorongo 04:55
Every problem has an answer, supposedly Perhaps we’ve missed more than we found in our history But all the peoples of the world in every time and place Between us not too much remains that as a whole we haven’t faced All the things that we could teach us If we just knew how to reach us With the wisdom of the whole of humankind But we fold along the creases And we tear off into pieces No room to wonder what we left behind Every written word began as a spoken tongue They let us see how things had sounded when the world was young We search the stelae for the thoughts behind the hieroglyphs One has to know what’s on the ground to hear the wisdom in the myths But conquistador desires Manifested into fires Sooner listen to the dagger than the pen And since they burned nearly every codex From the descendants of the Olmecs We reinvent the astral wheel again If we could just recall the songs of yesterday If we could read this rongorongo in the clay If we could just recall the songs of yesterday If we could read this rongorongo Every answer has a problem, supposedly The richest island still will have a set capacity This was the lesson that we wrote out for you in the end And since you cannot take our words you can ask our stolen friend In the faces we were carving While the common folk were starving See the pain of losing all that had been ours You can say we were just an island That isolation made us silent But the earth is just as isolated from the stars If we could just recall etc.
6.
Endangered 03:54
By the closing of the day I was running like an engine The way you looked, then looked away Enough to capture my attention I was wise enough in style But still fool enough to pick this Not close enough to share a smile But close enough to share a sickness Cognizant and reckless And if you will not watch me As I climb under the lens I'll sit and say goodbye Congratulations, parabens The ones who hold a mystery Like a stranger to a child I think that people like you Are endangered in the wild I wasn't looking for a fact I was looking through your table For no enthusiasm lacked In your fabricated fable I wasn't speaking from the cuff Neither had I been outsmarted But what I knew was not enough To be level­-head­-and-­hearted Abandon what I started By the rising of the Sun I had violated curfew But there was nothing in verse one That I would have been averse to We didn't bother asking why Or to see which way the winds blow I heard the call, but didn't try To go climbing out the window If Simon never said so
7.
So. My open cranium below Can you see what I don't know? Or restore what I forgot? I fell apart Since the day I lost the art Like the inverse of Descartes If I don't think, then I'm not I'm waiting on my recompense Ever since I've been stuck on one stupid line Seems I woke up without a sense Now it's all that I have in mind I'll play it over nineteen times Or at least 'til the music returns somehow But this twenty­-cent paradigm Is all that I can afford for now In a week It started getting hard to speak Hold the tongue and turn the cheek No longer actions optional Then the blind Fell across the part of mind That made the only love I'd find Forever silent, cynical It appears That the skills I used for years Are somehow lost between these ears Like a diamond in the rough Please confide If there's no cure you haven't tried Bring my sister to my side And I'll see Gershwin soon enough
8.
Canticle 04:04
You met me back when in the worst of my days In a dreary and cold November From where I was I would have given such praise To anything that could help me along I said the things that I had thought I should say And kept smiling so you’d remember The good impression that I put on that day When I quietly sang your song There is no friendship in an interview But still you looked across the line And tried to see what I made sure you never knew One small protectorate of what is solely mine For making friends with me would only be a mistake I’ll push upon the pedal while you’re pulling the brake The things we have in common will all prove to be fake If I should see you sleeping I will poke you awake I’ll vanish once I pocket all I think I can take I’ll serve you only frosting for there isn’t a cake And that’s one tenth of all the trouble that I’m certain to make Now that I’m settled in the sin of my ways You want to think of me like a neighbor But still this feeling like a foreigner stays On my conscience like sixty stones I drink your glass of Mavrodaphne divine As you ask me to stop and savor Is that because you think that everything’s fine Or that proximity chills your bones When you’re enamoured of a photograph One tends to miss the things behind You’d overlook a twenty­three foot tall giraffe For all the other senses active on your mind Don’t mean to emphasize the differences I’m only trying to save you time What I believe is far from what your father says And yet you’re saying that you want him to be mine
9.
10.
Handbirds 01:49
We turned appendages to animals For the cybernetic global masquerade Then in the cadence of your syllables I heard familiar and enchanting things conveyed Since then I'm drawn to every word you say Like a dissertation topic to expand One question walks across my mind each day Will I ever have a chance to reach your hand Before it flies away Perhaps you see the same and know I'm wrong From your thirteen hour future citadel But I've lived dark abstractions far too long To be covered in concrete would serve me well If only I could swim the ocean clear Like some leonid chimera of the sea Instead I'll sit and keep an open ear So I don't miss it if you ever call to me: Foreigner, come here

about

Zoonotic, the debut album from Semaphora, is a collection of ten songs exploring friendships and connections between human and non-human animals. At its foundation this is rock music, but with patches of jazz, reggae, and folk sewn in, all guided forward by dense, poetic lyrics about unconventional subjects.

credits

released April 5, 2017

All songs written, performed, and produced by Lydia Arachne, with:
Gina Rizzo - lead vocals (1, 3, 4, 6, 7, 10)
Elizabeth Ashkins - lead vocals (2, 4, 8), backing vocals (3)
Jessica Kalamaria Plude - lead vocals (5), backing vocals (2), woodwinds (2, 5, 7)
Jake Habegger - drums (3)
Special thanks to Bill Readey, Chris Quiriconi, Phil Soltis, and Brian McKenna, who all played a part in moving this album into the realm of the possible. Thanks also to Jack Mondo, Jesse Raderman, Jake Habegger, and Eliza Paterson, who helped to test the arrangements of many of these songs.

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Semaphora Connecticut

Carefully crafted rock treatises on our fascinating world. indie/jazz/folk/prog

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