“The cassette is dead,” journalist Juan Fernández published in 2007 in an article in El Periódico titled Cassette music disappears due to the dizzying fall in sales, where it was detailed that the last two tapes Sony (owner of 27% of the market) sold in Spain were Love Songs, by Julio Iglesias, in 2004, and Pisa el acelerador, by Joaquín Sabina, in 2005. Of the first, five units were sold, and of the second, 243.
Around those years, Daniel López Artiga, from Barcelona, and Cesar Calderón, from Granada, began to cultivate their passion for the cassette, a format that was the engine of the music industry and now forms part of the memory of many music lovers. López and Calderón, current residents of the Fabra i Coats Creation Factory in the Sant Andreu neighborhood, are the heart and soul of Empty 6 Pack, a record label that publishes music in cassette format.
We visit them on a hot morning when the Fabra i Coats chimney seems like it could smoke again. Their studio is in the artistic residences area. As soon as you enter, you see three tables overflowing with walkmans, whether Barbie, cow-themed, or more classic ones, as well as a tape display and even some with keychains that hang from the waist.
Music that is touched
There are several pieces that form the puzzle of Empty 6 Pack as residents at Fabra i Coats. Although the project started in 2019, they made the leap to Sant Andreu in 2023, as the previous year, López Artiga, the founder, was part of the programming team of Acció Cultura Viva de la Mercè, dedicated to emerging artists. There he came into contact with Fabra i Coats residents who encouraged him to apply for an artistic residency the following year. This is his fourth year doing it. But the underlying reason why the project is in a sweet spot is that both work with a conviction: “The grace of physical music, whether on cassette, vinyl, or CD, is that it makes you a participant in what you are listening to, like when you were little and went to Imaginarium and the song from Cinderella played on a toy.”
Although nostalgia permeates much of the project, what weighs most is the desire to break with musical immediacy. “Some will value that with vinyl you hear the ‘psss’ of the needle, but beyond that, the act of putting on the music, choosing the minute you want, fast-forwarding it… All of that makes you part of the act. It’s a response to the immediacy of current music where you don’t need to think to listen to music, because Spotify or YouTube already give you recommendations,” they criticize. In contrast, as they say, a cassette makes you feel like you “own” something. “We are paying for a lot of things we don’t have. We all pay for Netflix and Spotify, but then our homes are empty,” reflects Calderón.
Let's go a step further. This longing for the physical has led them over the years to become politically aware. Unless explicitly requested by the artist they work with, they do not publish music on Spotify, but on Bandcamp, which they consider protects the artist more. “Besides the fact that Spotify has placed ICE ads and promotes the Israel Defense Forces, as an artist you practically have to pay to work,” they lament. In this sense, although they have been going against the current for years, in Catalonia the boycott of Spotify has grown since the beginning of 2026 with the Boicot Spotify Països Catalans Platform, which follows in the footsteps of the Basque initiative Musikariak Palestinarekin, formed by 162 bands that have joined the collective boycott of this platform.
The reason for this farewell is the investments of the platform's founder, the Swede Daniel Ek, in a German arms company that develops military drones with artificial intelligence. Added to this is the issue of artist remuneration: platforms use a payment system that benefits large artists and penalizes smaller ones. According to Boicot Spotify Països Catalans, the platform pays between 0.001 euros and 0.003 euros per reproduction and especially benefits big names.
Faced with this issue, those responsible for Empty 6 Pack warn that Barcelona's independent music scene is experiencing a growing polarization between more consolidated and emerging projects. According to López Artiga, if this system is maintained, artists who already have recognition on Spotify will continue to accumulate visibility, while small ones will find it increasingly difficult to grow. "Big artists are rewarded and then they get bigger, and small ones get smaller," he summarizes. That is why they champion the work of labels, collectives and initiatives that bet on the underground and alternative formats, but they regret that these proposals continue to have "little room" and often depend on personal effort to reach the public.
The problem, they comment, is not the lack of talent or creators, since "you lift a stone and 500 DJs and 500 collectives come out" but the "lack of institutional support and structures that accompany emerging projects." While celebrating that Barcelona venues such as Razzmatazz (with Barna 92 Sessions, Torax, Fuego, Desacato Goblin, Pixel Party sessions), Apolo (Sala CINC), Vol, Laut, Heliogàbal, Meteoro or Pumarejo maintain a commitment to local proposals, they denounce that these spaces often survive with difficulties and without enough support from administrations.
“On Spotify, big artists are rewarded and then they get bigger, and small artists get smaller”
For the promoters of the label, the great challenge is precisely to create an ecosystem that allows those who promote cultural projects like theirs not to always have to choose between having a hobby or becoming an exceptional success. "Something in between is very complicated, at least in Spain," laments Calderón, while his colleague adds that many professionals in the sector are forced to combine their cultural projects with jobs unrelated to music to be able to subsist. They, for example, are dedicated to restoration.
The 'underground' catalog of Empty 6 Pack
However, what plays in an Empty 6 Pack session? First of all, it should be noted that the founder of Empty 6 Pack is also the artist behind Pernil∞CJ (Pernil Infinit Cassette Jockey), a project that offers sound sessions based on the technique of mixing using various cassette players. In fact, the label was born first and foremost to record his music: "In the midst of the hip-hop and graffiti movement in Barcelona, I released my own music with a friend on tape," he recalls. What was first an individual project later became a platform for Barcelona artists.
Thus, on January 8, 2019 (outside Fabra i Coats), the label took shape with the album Jordi Ganchitos Hits. Today they have 50 releases from punk, rock or electronic artists such as CLARAGUILAR, Kakkmaddafakka, Aire, Cecilio G, Derya Yildirim And Grup Şimşek, Space Surimi, Los Pintaos, among others. Precisely, last year, at a concert by Los Pintaos from Sabadell, the other partner of the project, Cesar Calderón, who had recently arrived in Barcelona, came into contact with Empty 6 Pack and, as he says with a smile, "it was love at first sight." "I'm not only interested in the musical part, but also in the manual and artisanal part, because I'm a restless soul," he comments.
Once the alliance was made, these tape enthusiasts began to learn to "recycle them," as they say. That is, recording music on empty cassettes, an almost artisanal job. If anyone wonders where they get the cassettes, they explain that people give them to them in the venues where they play, or friends, family, and they even get them from the recycling center. "You can also buy empty ones on second-hand platforms," they detail. Today they specifically show a bag full of tapes that the people from Ultra Local Records, a music store in the Poblenou neighborhood, gave them. Boxes and more boxes with old cassettes, divided by the duration that can be stored.
The creators of the label recycle cassettes they find on the street or that are given to them
And what is a normal day like at the Empty 6 Pack office? During this visit from AMIC Cultura, both get to work and prepare seven cassettes that Producto, a Latin American group based in Barcelona, has commissioned them. "The cassettes come with an open part so you can't re-record them, but we cover them to be able to do it," Calderón explains with the tape in hand. He places them with the pertinent side he wants to record and rewinds: "And now comes the magic, we have to do everything at once, this is totally analog, three, two, one...". One presses the device and the other clicks the sound program on the computer (which is a television screen, by the way) for it to start recording.
Finally, we sit down to talk and halfway through the interview we hear a 'click' indicating that a new batch of cassettes is about to play. It is evident that, despite the efforts of venues, labels, and collectives that support the local scene, more tools, support, and a determined commitment are needed for existing talent to develop and gain visibility. Finally, before leaving, they explain with laughter that the name, Empty 6 Pack, refers to beer cans, which come in sixes. There is no lack of positive spirit and a desire to party in this office in Fabra i Coats.
