The Diasonics – ‘Ornithology’ album review: Take a funk-fueled trip back to the golden age of soundtracks
Soundtrack albums are becoming something of a lost art within the modern music industry; even the blockbuster film scores of late seem to have lost their experimental slant that once made them so compelling.
Fear not, though, for there are still a few bastions of hope left in this desolate landscape, one of which comes in the form of Moscow-based instrumental outfit The Diasonics, whose latest record, Ornithology, transports listeners back to a time when library albums were at their most innovative, experimental, and, crucially, funky.
If every album is a product of its influences, then we can only imagine that The Diasonics spent months locked away in a forgotten corner of a dusty old record store, with only experimental KPM library LPs and retro-soaked synthesisers to keep them company. Over the course of Ornithology, the group guide their entranced listeners on a journey stretching from the unorthodox experiments of Soviet-era composers to the expansive world of Eastern psychedelia, stopping along the way to soak up all the jazz-funk sounds of 1970s art house cinema.
You would be forgiven for thinking that such a vast blend of very disparate sounds would result in an untenable menagerie of sound, but you would be dead wrong. Those who have been following the Moscow outfit since their 2022 debut, Origin of Forms, will be all too aware of their ability to blend a vast range of sounds and influences into one seamless record, and Ornithology is no exception. From the opening tones of funk-driven opener ‘Jay’ to the closing notes of ‘Cuckoo’, the album flows beautifully, just as every great library or soundtrack album should.
Whereas many of those old library albums were created out of necessity, or to provide budding – yet inexplicably tight-fisted – filmmakers with an easy-fit film score, one of the main things that sets Ornithology apart is the unrelenting passion of The Diasonics. As the track listing progresses, you can hear in their performance just how dedicated to the material they are; their chemistry as a group is second to none, and that appears to come from a shared adoration of the source material.
A great instrumental album is a tricky thing to master, but The Diasonics manage it with the utmost grace on Ornithology, creating a lush, flowing, jazz-funk masterpiece that would feel equally at home in a dusty box of 1970s library LPs or being blasted over a PA in a 21st-century dancehall.
Defining track: ‘Oriole’
For fans of: Putting on a trench coat and wandering around town pretending to be the star of some Eastern European experimental spy film from the 1970s.
A concluding comment from a composer of modern blockbuster scores: “What a load of nonsense. All a film score has to be is loud, suspenseful, and utterly unnoteworthy. What, I suppose we’re all meant to be skilled musicians now?”
Release date: October 3rd, 2025 | Producer: The Diasonics | Label: Record Kicks
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