“Countless bands hedge their music with heaps of irony (arguably vice versa in some cases), but few buttress it with DATAROCK’s  technical prowess… they also sport some of the slickest dance production in the biz, not to mention their effortless traversing between neurotic post-punk licks and coked-to-the-gills 1980s synth pop.” – Pitchfork

“DATAROCK’s ears are in the past, while its mind — juggling admiration, mockery, irony and commitment — is fully in the present.” – New York Times

Dancepunks
DATAROCK

Urges To Dance In the Face of Adversity
With New Single “DISCObedience”

Releases Stunningly Colorful A.I.-Created Video

AUGUST 18, 2023 (Bergen, Norway) – In these sometimes contentious and aggressively divisive times, peaceful protests are needed to balance out the aggression. As a homage to a political movement that started at the turn of the decade, Norwegian dance punks DATAROCK offer their latest single “DISCObedience” as a worthy anthem and gift to the Extinction Rebellion phenomenon of the same name.

Taken from their upcoming album Media Consumption Pyramid (release date: September 29, 2023 via YAP Records), “DISCObedience” is the third single from the dance-happy record that takes the acid-washed MADchester beats of Happy Mondays and Stone Roses and marries them with socially-conscious but celebratory messages and positivity.

Mixed by 2x GRAMMY®-winning Mark Rankin (Queens of the Stone Age, Iggy Pop, Bloc Party, Adele), the song features Ketel Two (a.k.a. Kjetil Traavik Møster), long time DATAROCK member and acclaimed jazz saxophone maverick who has been touring with everyone from Chick Correa and Pat Metheny to Röyksopp, Robyn, as well as his own solo project MØSTER. On “DISCObedience,” Ketel Two takes inspiration from James Chance’s signature style, but very much displaying his own unique style of improvisation — for which he has a PHD in performing arts.

Centered around the global environmental movement whose aim is to orchestrate peaceful protests against environmental collapse, DATAROCK zeroed in on the civil disobedience events organized in city centers that takes the form of massive dance assemblies.

“Hopefully one day, we’ll see one of these nonviolent, civic disobedience gatherings dancing to the beat of their very own soundtrack,” frontman Fredrik Saroea yearns, though he feels that their brand of ‘disco punk’ may be “a bit too aggressive, high tempo and inspired by post-punk like Gang Of Four and No Wave artists like DNA and James Chance and the Contortions for Extinction Rebellion’s dance routines and tutorials,” he laughs. “What a clever and charming civic disobedience that riot police can’t aggressively shut down, right?”

The accompanying A.I.-created video is a psychedelic mind trip that begins as amorphous shapes and eyeballs that eventually coalesce into a time lapse of the mundanity and banality of office life and technology. It’s a wake up call to get up from the stagnancy of work and enjoy life before life has passed you by. Created by acclaimed Norwegian art institution Aldea (who also created their previous video “Rabbit Hole”), the video for “DISCObedience” employs the creative side of A.I. to create beautifully shifting and evolving images that portray the passage of time.

The art collaborators at Aldea explain, “We’ve utilized cutting-edge technology to produce a series of music videos, each distinctively crafted for four tracks from their new album…..in the world where A.I. meets creativity, these advanced models translate the core emotions and narratives of the music into compelling visual experiences.”

An energetic and masterful album that combines music and message, Media Consumption Pyramid finds DATAROCK in a beat-frenzy, mixing and matching Madchester’s acid disco, synthpop’s textural soundscapes, and New Wave’s pop-injected danceability. From the call to vote in “Tick Tock,” to the baggy trousers-inspired “Rabbit Hole” (which could feel comfortable at home on Happy Mondays’ epic Pills ‘n’ Thrills and Bellyaches), to the breakbeats of “Metaverse,” the album is a refreshing and energizing splash of color in the current rather gray music world.

Formed in Bergen, Norway in 2000, DATAROCK made a huge splash across multiple media in different formats. Their music was not only massively embraced by the dancepunk community but also widely used across multiple platforms. Their breakthrough single “Computer Camp Love” placed at #88 on Rolling Stone’s “100 Best Songs of 2007.” Many of their singles including “Fa-Fa-Fa,” “True Stories,” and “Give it Up” were sync’ed across multiple platforms including commercials for Apple’s Nano and Coca Cola, on videogames such as The Sims 2: Free Time and FIFA 09 and 10, and on TV shows such as Chuck, Jersey Shore, and Yo Gabba Gabba.

While easily recognized for their coordinated matching tracksuits (originally red, but switched over to black in 2018), DATAROCK did not rely on a shtick for attention. Instead, as All Music Guide lauds, “DATAROCK doesn’t use humor as a crutch but instead as a coat rack, so to speak, to hang their excellent productions on… they appear capable of spinning virtually any musical idea into gold.”

DATAROCK is guitarist/vocalist Fredrik Saroea (Rock Steady Freddie), bassists Ketil Mosnes (Ketel One) & Thomas Larssen (T-Man), Casio-operator Stig Narve Brunstad (Stig The Mystical Casio Operator), keyboardist/saxophonist Kjetil Møster (Ketel Two), and drummers/percussionists Øyvind Solheim (Ike Andy) and Tarjei Strøm (LA Gear).

Media Consumption Pyramid was engineered by Øyvind Solheim, mixed by Steve Dub, and mastered by Mike Marsh and will be released on September 29, 2023 via YAP Records. “Rabbit Hole,” “Heart Shaped Circle” and “DISCObedience” are mixed by Mark Rankin and are available on all streaming platforms now.

DATAROCK 
Media Consumption Pyramid 

Tracklist:

1. “Armadillo Pt. II”
2. “Heart Shaped Circle”
3. “Metaverse”
4. “Rabbit Hole”
5. “DISCObedience”
6. “Tick Tock”
7. “Video Store”
8. “Aeon Flux”
9. “Digital Life”
10. “Armadillo Pt. II”
11. “Double Vision” (Bonus Track)

Social Media:
Twitter | Facebook | Website | Instagram | YouTube