OutKast

“Idlewild” (La Face)

Compare to: Cee-Lo, anything else from the Dungeon Family

Review: 4/5

In short: OutKast is back, together if only in name, for another masterful musical experiment.

What is the “Idlewild” soundtrack, you ask? Well, it’s the sort-of soundtrack by OutKast to a sort-of musical film starring OutKast set in 1930s Georgia, in which Big Boi and Andre 3000 star as a speakeasy owner/performer and a mortician/pianist, respectively.

Confused? Basically, it’s a chance for the boys to flex their acting chops, release another grandiose, bizarre concept album and play around with the sounds and styles of a different musical era – in this case, the jazz and blues of the Prohibition.

This is a brand-new 25-track album from OutKast, the duo’s first release since their 2003 equally ambitious and eclectic “Speakerboxxx/The Love Below” – which was really a solo album from each of them packaged together as a double disc.

Now Big Boi and Andre 3000 are together again, squashing any rumors that they were splitting after the last album and starting a whole new batch of rumors that they’ll be splitting up after this album.

Although the two can be heard trading verses on the catchy lead single “Mighty O,” don’t be fooled, their reunion is short lived.

The rest of the album features the two artists heading off in completely opposite directions.

Andre dabbles around in different genres such as blues, jazz and swing, and although his ambitions sometimes go beyond his vocal range, he occasionally strikes gold with tracks like the minimalist “Idlewild Blues.”

Complimenting Andre’s wide-eyed experimentalism is Big Boi, who prefers to mash up his diverse influences and serve them over fresh hip-hop beats. He is, as he’s probably always been, the better rapper, twisting his way through complex verses on songs like “Morris Brown.”

Without having seen the movie, I imagine Andre and Big Boi’s roles in the film are somewhat of a metaphor for their musical relationship, whether it’s intentional, I don’t know.

Living in two different worlds – keeping their distance from each other most of the time, but coming together when the creative muse strikes. This could have easily been another double album.

Andre could have had a whole disc to fulfill his time-travel fantasy back to the era of the film, and Big Boi could have put out a modern, funky, blues-influenced hip-hop/R&B record.

Both those albums exist somewhere within the scattered – and at times, brilliant “Idlewild” soundtrack. It’s up to the listener to decipher what’s what.

– Casey Jones