The music that circulates does not always reflect all the music that exists. To combat this, MúsicaKm0 was born, a project that functions as a sound map with a designation of origin that connects artists, producers, studios, labels and more with the aim of expanding the cultural circulation of music made in the territory.
At a time when digital platforms increasingly condition the way we discover music, MúsicaKm0, promoted by the Association of Catalan Phonographic and Videographic Producers and Editors (APECAT) with the support of the ICEC – Department of Culture, vindicates the need to generate spaces for context, prescription and discovery around music created and produced from Catalonia's musical and creative ecosystem.
Various sector studies indicate that real consumption remains strongly concentrated in a small part of the most visible artists and content. According to Alpha Data, 1% of artists accumulate nearly 90% of global streaming plays, a dynamic that often hinders the circulation of emerging scenes or independent projects. In this context, MúsicaKm0 highlights the importance of curation, contextualization, and musical discovery as tools to broaden the perspective on music produced in Catalonia. To date, the project has accumulated more than 63 million digital impressions and over 42,000 new followers through playlists linked to multiple musical scenes and genres produced in Catalonia, progressively consolidating a digital community connected by musical discovery and the circulation of music made from the territory.
MúsicaKm0 focuses on an increasingly relevant question for the sector: how do we discover today what we don't yet know? The project argues that, given the excess of content and the fragmentation of attention, curation, editorial criteria, and cultural prescription are becoming increasingly necessary tools. "Platforms have completely changed the way we listen to music, which is why it's important to create spaces that help discover artists, scenes, and proposals that might not immediately appear within the usual consumption dynamics," explains Eva Faustino, managing director of APECAT.
To respond to this need for discovery, MúsicaKm0 updates its identity with the aim of reaching more diverse audiences and provides users with a platform that brings together playlists and content linked to multiple musical scenes and genres produced in Catalonia. The project aims to facilitate open and transversal navigation through the territory's musical ecosystem, generating connections between established artists, new proposals, and less visible scenes.
The aim is for the user not only to listen to music but also to better understand the cultural and creative context behind each scene, label, style, or musical project. Currently, MúsicaKm0 groups lists linked to very diverse genres and sensibilities —from jazz, folk, or singer-songwriter music to electronic music, urban music, pop, sound experimentation, or new hybrid scenes— with the aim of reflecting the real plurality of music produced today in Catalonia. "Many times, music made in Catalonia is spoken of as if it were a single scene, and the reality is that very diverse proposals, languages, and ways of creating coexist," Faustino also highlights.
About APECAT
As a result of the need for a group of Catalan record labels to unite to face their challenges, the Association of Catalan Phonographic and Videographic Producers and Editors, under the acronym APECAT, was born in 2003. Since then, constituted as a non-profit entity, it watches over the interests of the record industry in Catalonia.
With the aim of defending, consolidating, and strengthening the Catalan phonographic and videographic sector, APECAT promotes and encourages music created in the territory. Today, it represents 43 associated companies, which constitute a majority part of the Catalan phonographic sector, and works for the benefit of all people linked, professionally or not, to recorded music in Catalonia.
