Outkast get up to mischief on their latest album, Paris Hilton is bad but quite as bad you might expect, and the Istanbul Oriental Ensemble offer some lively Turkish grooves...

POP

Outkast
Idlewild (Sony BMG)
Review: Chris Elwell-Sutton
****

Outkast's sixth album is the soundtrack to the movie Idlewild, in which Andre 3000 and Big Boi get up to mischief during the Prohibition era.Vanity projects are always a scary prospect, but despite running to a seemingly selfindulgent 25 tracks, this one provides the duo's best work in years. It features the kind of unpredictability and variety for which they've become known, but there's more structure here than on their recent freeform noodlings. Influenced by the Prohibition era, tracks such as On the Way to Heaven make good use of the Thirties swing sound as Andre croons his heart out.The Mighty O is the best example of their welcome return to real hip hop beats, and pleasingly, to real rapping, with Andre's loose-lipped flow the perfect counterpoint to Big Boi's solid, thoughtful delivery.

Paris Hilton
Paris Hilton (Warner Bros)
Review: John Aizlewood
**

While Paris Hilton may be not be the team mate of choice on University Challenge, the heiress's willingness to make a fool of herself is oddly touching. The anti-renaissance woman is, inevitably, a bit-part player on her own album and when this least alluring of sirens asks on her jawdropping (but not in a good way) version of Rod Stewart's Do Ya Think I'm Sexy, the resounding answer is "not if you were the last - as well as the richest - woman on earth". Elsewhere, amid the anaemic dross, the amiably chugging Stars Are Blind is unashamedly terrific, while Fightin' Over Me (particularly the many sections where Hilton isn't involved), isn't far behind. Not a great step forward for popular music, but not quite the car crash it threatened to be.

CLASSICAL

Anderson Alhambra Fantasy
BBCSO/London Sinfonietta/Knussen (Ondine, ODE 1012-2)
Review: Barry Millington
*****

Julian Anderson is one of Britain's most formidably talented and important composers - though resident in the United States. Here, five scores, all written between 1990 and 2000, demonstrate the composer's ability to build powerful structures out of disparate material. Khorovod (Russian for round dance) may start and end on C, but in between there is anarchic, whirling folk music from Russia, Romania, Turkey and elsewhere. The Stations of the Sun culminates in a shimmering, ecstatic coda that brilliantly distills the essence of all that has gone before. Terrific performances from the London Sinfonietta and BBC Symphony under Oliver Knussen.

WORLD

Istanbul Oriental Ensemble
Grand Bazaar (Network, 495114)
Review: Simon Broughton
****

Anyone who has visited Istanbul's Kapali Carsi (Grand Bazaar) on holiday will expect something fascinating and colourful from this CD, if not something vast and labyrinthine. Led by percussionist Burhan Ocal, the Istanbul Oriental Ensemble is a classy band playing the gipsy-style music of the Turkish capital. There's a string orchestra providing backing for solo arabesques on rippling kanun zither, lute, violin and squealing clarinet, played most-strikingly by Savas Zurnaci. Underpinning it all is a lively groove of Turkish percussion. The tracks are given titles such as Bazaar at Night, Belly Dance and Istanbul by Night, although these are little more than excuses for virtuoso or filigree improvisations.