Issue #99: Bile – Teknowhore

Released:  June 18th, 1996

Recorded:  Summer – Fall 1995

Genre:  Industrial Metal

Record Label:  Energy

Duration:  66:55

Producers:  Slave, Krztoff

Personnel

Track Listing

Singles

Why Teknowhore is One of My Favorites

Alright, so now we’re back to Bile, and on to the first Bile album I actually owned.  In the previous issue I covered Biledegradable, eventually admitting that the idea and the concept is perhaps more appealing than the actual music.  But it’s also worth mentioning that one of Bile’s “goals” was to be an “anti-band,” so perhaps the inclusion of scathing industrial metal alongside “anti-music” was purely intentional.  At any rate, Teknowhore is a bit more conventional in its approach with largely recognizable song structures.

I go into more detail about Bile themselves and their music in the preceding issue, but to quickly reiterate, few bands have been this bent on shock and awe.  These guys are scary looking, aggressive, disgusting…and they make music to match.  It is all at once chaotic, strange, harsh, and uncompromising.  Bile takes industrial metal and turns into a living thing that writhes and twists and roars.  Their music is both horrible and amazing, and these guys are really pushing the boundaries between music and art.

Despite the lack of either of Bile’s 2 most well-known (and I use the term loosely) songs, “I Reject” and “In League,” Teknowhore may just be the Bile album to own when it comes to their signature sound.  The guitars bounce between scathing buzzes and sludgy fuzzes.  The samples, twisted and distorted, slither like a worm through refuse, and the drums pound away like relentless, emotionless machines.  Krztoff screams, moans, and grunts in otherwordly tones, with a layer of effects that make him sound like the amalgam of creature and robot.  It’s dark and disconcerting, but it’s also amazing and filled with a sort of toxic energy that can’t be stopped.

“Intro” plays out a lot like a lot of other intros; it’s a wash of noise that does more to set the tone for the album than it does to serve as an actual song.  It’s mostly a mash up of vocal samples, but there’s a hypnotic, mechanical churning that pulses beneath the surface.

“Teknowhore” kicks things off with a short but intense burst of noise.  A frenzy of guitars and drums starts and stops to allow for Krztoff’s static-y screams to break through, eventually giving way to shouts of “TEKNOWHORE!”  The whole affair is a pretty nasty attack aimed at a member of the fairer sex, and it’s a great beginning to the venom and vitriol that the album has to offer.

“Weather Control” takes us to the experimental side of the genre with a collage of distortion and synth.  There’s a danceable, almost club-worthy beat at work here; it sounds like KMFDM being run through a garbage disposal.  Near the end there’s more of that mechanical goodness, with sounds that literally resemble the turning of gears, hydraulics, and metallic clanking.

“No One I Call Friend” is easily one of Bile’s signature songs in my opinion.  After rounds of silence alternated with electronic screams, it settles into a rapid, pounding number with an urgent rhythm and Krztoff’s unsettling delivery.  As the title would suggest, this track is about as antisocial as it gets and further demonstrates Bile’s desire to repel and their misanthropic grasp on reality.

“Habitual Sphere” might be as close as Bile has come to performing something catchy.  Backed by a sped up dance beat overlain with guitars, it falls into an irresistible rhythm reminiscent of both club music and 80’s thrash and speed metal acts.  Much of this drops away after a few moments, and Krztoff begins his low rumbling as the beat slowly builds back up.

“Compound Pressure” is one of Bile’s best songs, even if it is little more than a sleazy story about how the singer “fucked your woman to get back at you.”  It’s another effective start-stop track, a mid-tempo song where the crushing guitars provide as much percussion as the actual drums.  I love how it booms and plods with disgusting lines like, “I got a big fat cock and shot her face / Swallowed my spunk with no disgrace.”  Wonderfully filthy.

“Interstate Hate Song” picks up the pace again with more metal-grinding guitar riffs and booming, resonant percussion.  This might be the “most metal” track on Teknowhore with its thrash-like beat and embryonic “solos.”  However, Krztoff also manages some very Skinny Puppy-esque moments as his distorted voices punches in and out of the mix in offbeat rhythms.

“Green Day” could be seen as filler by some (it’s only 1 minute and 12 seconds long), but it’s one of my favorite Bile tracks ever.  A minimal, lo-fi backdrop provides the beat.  The sparse and fuzzy electronic instrumentation gives the song a “drugged up” feeling.  It provides a brief respite from the album’s barrage of noise, evocative of a blurry haze.  The song itself is obviously about drugs (“Help me / Take my medicine / So the pain will go away”), with the choice lyric being, “I’m so fucked up on val – ee – um [valium] / I can’t move my lips to say.”  And indeed I can imagine a half-awake benzodiazepine-induced fog when listening to “Green Day,” albeit with a marginally sinister tint.

“No I Don’t No” is yet more heavy-hitting, uncompromising Bile.  It begins with a sort of weird call and response between slamming guitar riffs and a bark-like sound.  Soon it churns and grinds much like the other tracks, though there’s an increased intensity here, mostly felt through Krztoff’s almost larnyx-bursting screams and blistering drum fills.  The way that this intensity pulses in and out of focus reminds me a lot of “Where Evil Dwells” off of the digipak version of Fear Factory’s Obsolete.

“Suckers” kicks off the largely experimental final third of Teknowhore, and isn’t much of a “song” at all.  Static, some odd noises, and eventually a choir or opera of some sort played at a low volume are the only things to be heard.

“Lowest Form” doesn’t quite contain the same level of buzzing and booming found on previous tracks, though it does play  more with the purer notion of industrial music.  Feedback, distortion, and sounds rendered unrecognizable make up most of this track, though there is almost an actual melody that pops up in the vocals for a bit.

And now we move into the interesting “You Can’t Love This” tetrarch, which in  weird way could sum up the entirety of Bile’s range.  “Pt.1” is just a repeated sample of a guy calling a girl a slut.  I have no idea where it comes from, though there is a funny line in there – “I don’t fuck sluts / I jerk off on ’em.”  “Pt. 2” represents “classic Bile” with its mid-tempo pace and use of fuzzy guitars.  The bass is prominent as well, creating that dank and damp feeling that the thick thud of bass has a way of doing.  “Pt. 3″ is an extremely dreary piece.  The lyrics are spoken lowly, and seem to be an overt reflection on suicide, presumably as a reaction to the actions of a loved one (though the end seems to see the speaker coming around…”wait a minute / for her?”).  The music itself is eerie as well.  It’s a lot like the dark ambient music found in the catalog of some black metal musicians (such as Burzum’s Filosofem), combining the feeling of a deep dark dungeon with the emptiness and coldness of outer space.  It reminds me a lot of the less orchestral pieces found in earlier Doom games.  “Pt. 4” comes back to the driving force of guitars as Krztoff muses, “I hate you you fucking cunt!” over and over again.  There may be other words here (“LIAR!” maybe?), but it’s a very noisy and distorted piece of work representative of Bile’s chaotic side.  However, the music shifts between a few different variants throughout this 6 and a half minute track and there’s some great riffing to be found during the second half.

“Solitude is Bliss” closes the album with an electro-industrial soundscape full of clanking buzzing and popping.  It sounds a bit messy at first, especially with so many different sounds jumping into the mix, but pretty soon a complex rhythm begins to emerge.  There are lyrics buried somewhere in here, but they’re very much a part of the overall sound.  Moreso than anything else on Teknowhore, “Solitude is Bliss” has the distinct mark of staple industrial acts like Ministry and Killing Joke.

I’d need to refresh myself with some of Bile’s more recent work before definitively judging just where Teknowhore falls in the broader scope of their career, though by itself it’s a powerful blast of industrial filth.  Loud, caustic, and an explicit backlash against the norm, it captures all the heaviness of all metal without the accompanying sterility, and further distorts and perverts the genre with the use of electronics.  Krztoff’s diseased-ridden vocals lead the charge, with a level of anger and hostility much too intense to ever gain too much mainstream acceptance.

Written by The Cubist

Other albums from Bile in this series:

• 1997 – Bile – Biledegradable – Issue #98

Back to The Cubist’s 90’s Albums

Written by The Cubist

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I collect as much video gaming paraphernalia as I can get my hands on, especially when it comes to hardware. With over 40 systems including oldies like the ColecoVision and Intellivision, obscurities like the CD-i and 3DO, and the latest and greatest including the Wii U, PS4, Xbox One, 3DS, and PS Vita, I get easily overwhelmed. Most of the time you can find me firmly nestled sometime between 1985 and 1995 when it comes to my games of choice, but I’m also having a great time seeing what the 8th generation has to offer.

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