This book tells the story of Festival Autoplacer, which celebrated its 15th anniversary in 2024. Over the years, the festival has been a springboard for countless bands and become a touchstone for Madrid’s self-published music scene and alternative circuit, following a trajectory that has unfolded in parallel with that of Museo CA2M.
To mark 15 years of Festival Autoplacer at Museo CA2M, the collective takes the opportunity to reflect on the underground music scene and how it has changed over the past decade and a half. The book brings together specially commissioned texts by Elena Cabrera, Chenta Tsai, Andrea Galaxina, Joel Blanco and Patri Di Filippo with the festival’s visual output: designs by Raisa Álava, Luis Vassallo, Nat M. Waterman, Aleksandra Waliszewska and Elena Alonso, photographs by Arantxa Boyero, Miguel Trillo, Jonay P. Matos, Patricia Nieto and Alexander Gross, and contributions from many others.
Across 280 pages and more than 300 images, “Underground Music” charts the events of those 15 years, tracing a hidden current through which artists, musicians, bands, solo performers, projects of every kind and creators from across disciplines have passed. Over that time, ideas, formats, politics and aesthetics have shifted and mutated, as have the images that bear witness to it all. Ultimately, the book takes us on a journey to the sound of “underground music”, with the Autoplacer experience itself as its final destination: nothing more and nothing less than the only truly satisfying outcome of DIY.