Man Bites Dog

Man Bites Dog: Okno

by Eric J. Iannelli
July 17, 2004

"Jazz music," writes the French novelist Françoise Sagan, “is an intensified feeling of nonchalance." While this amusing little paradox might be contestable when applied broadly across the genre--isn't Coltrane's convulsive, rapturous later work the direct opposite of nonchalance?--it is certainly apparent throughout Okno, the third album from the Amsterdam-based outfit Man Bites Dog.

On Okno, MBD rarely bullies the listener into paying attention, but rather engages him by subtle means--that compelling intensity behind the casual detachment. “Strijklicht," for ...