A tender film about the music of Mayan descendants is hampered by the alofty adherence to a documentary aesthetic where nothing is explained

This film about a flute player and farmer named José Pérez López from Zinacantán in Chiapas, Mexico, teems with beautifully shot images of folks playing music, embroidering, participating in days-long community rituals, and tending their crops of flowers in polytunnels – pretty normal everyday stuff. It feels a little more elevated because it affords a glimpse into the life of descendants of the Mayans who practice ancestor worship and polytheistic beliefs but also have shrines with Catholic saints. The film’s website has a handy chunk of text about Bats’i son ta Sots’leb, the traditional music of Zinacantán, described in fascinating musicological detail.

It’s a shame that kind of explanatory background can’t be found anywhere in the movie. In fact, the subtitles and dialogue never even give the names of the people we are observing for most of the running time. You can only work out that the old guy is named José, and the woman who laughingly scolds him for drinking so much is Elvia Pérez Suárez, presumably his wife, and that they also live with a hard-working younger man named Esteban Pérez Pérez (presumably José and Elvia’s son) and some even younger kids: Esteban’s children? Random kids from next door? Who knows, because this scrupulously verité-style film is determined to adhere to the high-arthouse documentary aesthetic wherein nothing is explained, nothing is contextualised, and there’s no sense of what point or purpose this all serves other than a little digital tourism to a far-flung corner of the globe.

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The now dissolved Hipgnosis Music received funds that were proceeds of fraud, Merck Mercuriadis alleges in court documents

The founder of a music company that holds the rights to songs by Blondie and Justin Bieber has accused his former business partner of using the proceeds of fraud to fund their collapsed venture, court documents show.

Merck Mercuriadis is the founder of Hipgnosis Songs Fund (HSF), a FTSE 250 company that buys music rights in the hope of profiting from streaming revenues, and which is now set to be taken over by private equity investor Blackstone in a £1.3bn deal .

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Frontman for ‘noise rock’ bands Big Black and Shellac acclaimed for his production of albums by Nirvana, Pixies and PJ Harvey

Steve Albini, the musician and frontman of the alternative rock bands Big Black and Shellac, who has died from a heart attack aged 61, was more widely known for his huge list of credits as a producer, or – as he preferred to be called – recording engineer, of albums by independent artists from the mid-1980s to the present.

Notable recordings bearing the Albini imprint include Pixies’ Surfer Rosa (1988), the Breeders’ Pod (1990), PJ Harvey’s Rid of Me (1993), the Auteurs’ After Murder Park (1996) and Manic Street Preachers’ Journal for Plague Lovers (2009). He collaborated with Robert Plant and Jimmy Page on Walking Into Clarksdale (1998), recorded The Weirdness with punk pioneers the Stooges (2007), and worked with Cheap Trick and the B52s’ Fred Schneider, but sought to treat unknown acts and superstars equally.

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Hip-hop luminaries bash each other in a diss track war of war of words featuring an unlikely venue: the New Ho King restaurant

• Drake and Kendrick’s rap beef explained: is this a ‘forever thing’?

When he arrived for dinner with his mother at the New Ho King, Averie Taylro Francois, 14, didn’t need to read the menu.

Neither did the dozens of others waiting patiently for a table at the bustling Toronto restaurant. The dish everyone had come to enjoy – and to post about on social media- wasn’t on the menu.

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Simmering feud between two of hip-hops biggest names exploded this week, with allegations of infidelity and child sex abuse

It’s the most talked about event in pop culture right now, with experts and fans calling it “the defining hip-hop beef of the 21st century”.

The long-simmering feud between two of the world’s most famous artists – Drake and Kendrick Lamar – finally erupted this week.

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O2 Academy, Glasgow
The Texan star transfixes with her crystal clear voice and flawless band, balancing airy verses on the healing beauty of nature with a dash of darkness

‘Looks like you came to party!” teases Kacey Musgraves , radiant in a white dress and matching cowboy boots. With a gentle wave, the Texan country star tells us to take it easy. Tonight’s showcase for her introspective sixth album Deeper Well is all mellow magic – but for every airy verse about the healing beauty of nature, there’s a shadowy kicker.

Cardinal , the album’s lead single, is dedicated to the late John Prine. Over an eerily transcendent, 70s-infused guitar melody, she wonders if he’s sending her signs “from the other side”. For a split second, the lights cut out. The gorgeous Heaven Is , inspired by Scottish folk song Ca’ the Yowes, veers from earthly pleasures to mysteries beyond the veil, while The Architect , with its humble strumming and deceptively simple refrain, is split between fate and fatalism: “Could I pray it away, am I shapeable clay? Or is this as good as it gets?”

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O2 Arena, London
Beaming, big-hearted and benevolent, Guy Garvey charms with stately songs of heartbreak, unafraid of uneven time signatures and heavy-metal thud

Elbow looked for a while to be settling into a mellow, beatific serenity. Their last album, 2021’s Flying Dream 1 , was a winningly gentle affair, its delicate tracks seemingly competing between themselves to be the most soothingly romantic. You idly wondered if the band were easing into a benign dotage.

This impression was spectacularly misleading. Elbow have always been too itchy and antsy a group to settle for mere prettiness, and their recent album, Audio Vertigo , their fourth to top the UK chart, returned to more challenging musical terrain. No prog rock band worth their salt ever totally abandons their uneven time signatures.

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Sixty years after her debut album, we rate the pop singer’s best tracks, from a song recorded in a stairwell to a Pet Shop Boys collaboration

It’s closer to a show tune than soul, but Dusty Springfield kept singing Quiet Please live during her wilderness years for a reason. The version from 1979, the year Springfield’s UK tour was cancelled due to poor sales, is particularly freighted: “She may not be the latest rage, but she’s singing and she means it … give her your respect if nothing else.”

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A new exhibition at the American Museum of Natural History in New York celebrates the cultural influence of hip-hop through a selection of eye-popping, custom-made jewelry, worn by stars such as Nas, Slick Rick and Tyler, the Creator. ‘It’s time to celebrate the artists, jewelers, craftsmen, and everyday people who contributed to the storied history of hip-hop jewelry,’ said guest curator Vikki Tobak. Ice Cold: an Exhibition of Hip-Hop Jewelry is on display until 5 January 2025

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