70 minutes, 45 seconds

Data-Bank-A
Continental Drift & Birth of Tragedy

The cover image you see at left doesn't reflect the version I own, but it's the only image of the CD I could find online. The Subtronic/SPV edition (released in 1995) is much darker in color and is dominated by the relief map of Europe that you can see on the left-hand side of the cover image I used here. Yeah, I suppose I could have dragged out the camera and photographed my copy for accuracy's sake, but you know what? I'm too damn lazy. And I don't love you people enough.

I do love Andrew Szava-Kovats's voice, though. I even love his funny, retro analog-synth music. The lyrics are sort of phoned in, with very repetitive tropes, but it hardly matters. That doomy, commanding voice could recite the ingredients in toothpaste, and I'd still listen. If you're not familiar with Szava-Kovats, he records under a bunch of different aliases (if your last name were Szava-Kovats, wouldn't you?): Data-Bank-A, Dominion, Compound, ASK, etc. His best work was probably in the mid to late '80s, which is when the material on this disc was originally recorded. Some other recommended titles from this one-man dynamo:

• Compound, Cinema Verité
  
• Data-Bank-A, Access Denied & Isolation
  
• Data-Bank-A, Empty
  
• Data-Bank-A, Salad Days
  
• Dominion, Lost
  
• Dominion, Manhunt
  

You can order most everything he's released from his Web site, in most cases as CDRs but occasionally in their original import-CD format.

OK, now that I've shilled for Andy, I have to go shill for my real job. Happy Friday.

Also today:

70:45 In the Nursery, Scatter
70:40 Abscess, Punishment and Crippled Reality
70:35 Data-Bank-A, Nuclear Winter
70:35 Steve Roach, Quiet Music (CD 2 of 2)
70:34 Numina, Trancension (CD 2 of 2)
70:33 yelworC, Collection 1988-94 (CD 2 of 2)
70:31 Ghosts of Breslau, Peste