From most artists, an album clocking in at 78 minutes and, bar interludes, 19 songs might be pushing it. But this is Outkast, whose epic Speakerboxx/The Love Below was 39 tracks long, so they have form. The film to which this album is, in part, the soundtrack is released next month; until then, Idlewild can be judged only as a stand-alone. What it demonstrates, thrillingly, is that nobody is making merry with musical genres with anything like the inventiveness of Outkast. Plenty of artists chuck the kitchen sink at songs, but Andre 3000 and Big Boi, crucially, know when to strip it back as well as pile it on. The key sequence runs from N2U to Call the Law, taking in the sectionable Chronomentrophobia, Hollywood Divorce, Life Is Like a Musical, Morris Brown and The Train, raiding the Beatles’ back catalogue, basking in Busby Berkeley and honouring Prince along the way. The whole affair is unwieldy, baffling, shocking and captivating.

La Face

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