Waking up

and

paying attention

We Are Creative Animals

Creative Animals is a duo consisting of Zac Dylan and Jonathan Hafer, conceived after the breakup of their former band The March Hare in 2009. With a shared do-it-yourself drive to push the limits of their abilities, and a reckless enthusiasm for artistic vision without rules, they set off on the decade long journey that would result in their debut album Waking Up and Paying Attention.

From a shared workspace in a moldy basement in Philadelphia to home studios in separate states, as Dylan and Hafer shaped Waking Up and Paying Attention it shaped them in a feedback loop between creators and created. When the music demanded it, they relearned how to sing, mastered new instruments and production techniques, and grew as people. As their experiences coalesced into Waking Up and Paying Attention it ultimately became an album about itself and the process of its creation, a meditation on the relationship between the physical self and intangible inspiration.

Stylistically a mash-up ode to the broad influences of its makers, Waking Up and Paying Attention takes the listener on a pilgrimage from the roaringly epic to the plaintively melodic, always with a beat to nod to and a tune to stick in the head. Equally comfortable borrowing from orchestral-math-metal and electro-folk-pop as progressive-art-rock and psychedelic-techno-jazz, the music of Creative Animals defies easy genre classifications as piano arpeggios overlap funky basslines, and blaring horns blend into shimmering interlocking guitars and dense vocal harmonies. Like a dream to a dreamer, Waking Up and Paying Attention invites the listener to accept its own internal logic and get lost for a while, and later, to wake slightly changed, carrying echoes of the journey.

Zac Dylan

Zac Dylan is a multi-instrumentalist musician. Outside of his work in Creative Animals he releases music under the moniker Omnitale and plays in the group Saint Mercury.

Jonathan Hafer

Jonathan Hafer is a visual artist as well as a musician, and is responsible for all the art and design for *Creative Animals*. His work encompasses photography, traditional drawing and painting, and a wide variety of computer assisted and computer generated techniques. Examples of his art and other musical projects can be found on his website JonathanHafer.com, as well as Instagram, and Behance.

Lyrics

Alone With The Universe

I exist I insist

we are the wave and the water

we are the hands and the clay

we are home and alive

we are

Americana

I know the victims of the sleepwalking crimes

I know the pattern and the people

I know the rhythm of the river at dawn

I know the secrets of the slow life

well I was back back back by the side of the road

but I hitched a ride past the border of vultures

better watch out

cause I'm steering the universe

wherever I roam

take a left take a right rest my head on a mountain

throw my eyes in the river let 'em swim back to me

better watch out

cause I'm steering the universe

wherever I roam

I know the chasers of the halfhearted lies

I know the towers and the steeples

I know the likeness of the right and the wrong

I know the riches of the restless

The Ship of Theseus

changes

I’ve changed before and I’ll change again

no man can live forever

just a pattern

just a shadow

I know

the consequence perspective brings

there’s nothing at the center

we are the shapes we trace in time

the more you run, the stronger I get

we are all still children stumbling from the womb

I have awoken from nothing

I have understood only

we are all still children stumbling from the womb

Morning Bird

wait, what is your name?

you sing a song I’ve heard before

stay, I’d like to ask you

who are you and what am I?

and are these bones I carry just machinery?

someone else is me

I’m not me

wait, where are you going?

I’ve been asleep and now I’m confused

stay, I’d like to ask you

do I dream you, or you dream me?

and are my memories of you just imaginary?

Animals Eat Animals

That’s why I just eat dog food. It’s a balanced diet.

They just swooped in from above, right out of the sky, no mercy whatsoever. I don’t think anybody saw it coming. It was the most horrifying thing I’ve ever seen, and before you knew it everyone around me was gone. No one was left, but off in the distance I heard a voice saying over and over, “There’s been a murder right outside of your home. Outside the comfort, comfort of your home.”

So I did what I always do. I went inside and went on with my life. I went to bed at nine like every night, and was at work by eight. I was the only person there, mind you. That night when I turned on the t.v. I swear I heard the static kept telling me over and over and over, “There’s been a murder right outside of your home. Outside the comfort, comfort of your home.”

Animals eat animals! Animals eat animals!

All my friends, they grew up and flew away. I can’t recall their faces or their names.

You, Me, and The Machine

he takes his place on the stage

adjusts his mask

and holds his head on straight

he longs to break

but he can only bend

I want it all.

you, me, and the machine

quick quick

look up into the sky

coming at you fast

better learn to run

you, me, and the machine

Locating The Answer

we are the wave and the water

we are the hands and the clay

we are home and alive

we are

let’s all go back to the start

let’s all go back where we all belong

let’s all go back to that first

let’s all go back to that first feeling