NME is reporting that MTV has banned the new ATR video, "Revolution Action" (probably due to too many acronyms in that last statement). The setting for the video is an office filled with generic cubicles and drone-like workers. Atari Teenage Riot’s crafty techno-rebels infiltrate the company computer system with a message that states: "Profitable genocide. Your rule is over. Deny conformity. Paradise is beyond. We will not negotiate." The workers’ faces subsequently turn into TV screens and they start to destroy the office in a series of scenes that somehow manage to "deny conformity, seek out paradise, and refuse to negotiate." Essentially, it’s our guess that the video was banned not for any socio-political reasons, but for its insipid, cliched content.

Atari Teenage Riot is no stranger to "controversy," having been at the center of a riot that erupted in the streets of Berlin following an anti-war protest last March. The anarchic rebels will probably be getting into more hi-jinks during their upcoming ten-day tour of England and Ireland starting October 15th.

A quick note, however: one thing that you will not hear from Atari Teenage Riot during this tour (besides fresh and innovative social commentary) is the use of the German language. Alec Empire’s refuses to sing in his native tongue because of his belief that Germans are fascists.

Finally, the "Revolution Action" video ban follows a recent decision by the Independent Television Commission to ban Leftfield’s "Afrika Shox" video from the forthcoming Rhythm and Stealth album on British television before 11pm. The Independent Television Commission is the organization responsible for the licensing and regulation of commercially funded television in the United Kingdom.

>>> View a clip of the "Afrika Shox " video
>>> The NME story
>>> Digital Hardcore’s ATR page
>>> Video for "Revolution Action"
>>> Live performance at London’s Queen Elizabeth Hall
>>> ATR getting arrested by the Politzei