Cantera: Mazu, The Son of Wood, CABA and four other emerging artists who have just released new music

Cantera is ModoFestival's section for discovering emerging artists who are starting to make their way around venues and festivals. The selection is made by the editorial team and nobody pays to be featured.

This first instalment of Emerging releases brings together seven projects that have released music between 10 September and this October, from El Bierzo to Cádiz and from Salamanca to Alicante. What unites them is timing, not style: pop-rock with echoes of the 2000s, folk that crosses paths with rap, guitar indie, flamenco with electronica, urban music with Latin rhythms, self-produced pop and hip hop with an Afro base. Everything is already available to listen to, except the second half of CABA's album, which arrives this Friday.

Guitars with three accents: Mazu, The Son of Wood and Finde Fantasma

All three are bands and all three have released a new song in the past month, but they come from very different places: early-century radio pop-rock, many-handed folk and guitar indie.

Mazu, pop-rock from El Bierzo in a hurry

Mazu is a band from Ponferrada, in El Bierzo, with the classic line-up of vocals, guitar, bass and drums. Their new song, ‘café de los viernes (el tiempo)’, came out on 16 October, already has a music video and is the fourth preview of their debut album. Carlos Hernández produces every song on the record, which Diario de León places in the first half of 2027.

The song is about living with the feeling of always running late, and it gets there in two minutes and twenty-five seconds. Mazu make no secret of where they come from: their stated reference is Spanish pop-rock of the 2000s, a repertoire they know well after more than 200 covers gigs before releasing their own material, as they explained in the interview published on ModoFestival ahead of their appearance at SilFest Valdeorras. This summer they made it to Sonorama Ribera, where they played on 8 August.

Live: no new dates have been announced. To listen: the music video on YouTube or the song on Spotify.

The Son of Wood, seven musicians and a faun

The Son of Wood is a seven-piece folk rock group from Salamanca. Since 15 October they have had the video for ‘Fauno’ on YouTube, the fifth preview of an album that, according to their label, Calaverita Records, will be out before the end of 2026. The same source credits the production to Diego Galaz, of Fetén Fetén, and Martín García Duque.

The video is a close-up of each band member as a pair of hands paints them blue, the same play of brushstrokes that appears in the photo at the top of this article. The lyrics, published alongside the video, mix desire and cheek with lines such as ‘Sitting like the caganer’. With seven musicians, the blend of folk, rock and rap described by their label needs a stage to be fully understood: this is one to note down for when they go on tour.

Live: no dates on sale; the label mentions an extensive tour in 2027. To listen: ‘Fauno’ on YouTube.

Finde Fantasma return with a new album and a hometown date

Finde Fantasma is an indie rock band from Alicante who debuted in 2022 with ‘Intramuros’. ‘Antigua Roma’, with a video out since 22 September, is the first preview of their second album and compares the fall of an empire with the end of a relationship.

Four years after their debut, the comeback starts in their home city: they are the only act in this selection with an album launch confirmed and on sale, and ‘Antigua Roma’, the first preview, is so far the only track released from the new material.

Live: they launch the album on Friday 27 November at 21:00 at the Stereo venue in Alicante. Tickets are on sale at Entradas.com. ModoFestival may receive a commission if you buy through this link, at no extra cost to you. To listen: ‘Antigua Roma’ on YouTube.

Lorca and a clock: two albums that ask to be heard in full

CABA and Dib have not released standalone songs: each has built an album with a narrative thread that makes more sense from start to finish.

CABA sets Lorca between flamenco, pop and electronica

David Caba, who records as CABA, grew up in Benalup-Casas Viejas (Cádiz) and now works between Madrid and Barcelona. ‘Otro perro andaluz’ turns poems by Federico García Lorca into songs: fourteen tracks split into two halves. Side A was presented in spring with the videos for ‘El alba’ and ‘Un día de julio’; the autumn has brought the videos for ‘Santiago de Cuba’ (18 September) and ‘Soneto de la carta’ (9 October), and Side B, led by ‘Mantos negros’, comes out this Friday 23 October, according to his team.

Setting Lorca to music is well-trodden ground, from Camarón on ‘La leyenda del tiempo’ to Enrique Morente with Lagartija Nick on ‘Omega’. CABA approaches it from a different angle, where flamenco meets pop and electronica, and takes the poems to his homeland: according to Neo2, the video for ‘Santiago de Cuba’ was shot at La Caleta in Cádiz, not in Cuba.

Live: no concerts open to the public have been announced. To listen: ‘Soneto de la carta’ on YouTube.

Dib tells a relationship in twelve hours

Dib, whom his team presents as ‘a lad from La Cabrera’, mixes urban music, Latin rhythms and guitars. On 11 September he released ‘MERCURIO’, an album in which each song is an hour on the clock of a relationship, from one to twelve, and which according to his team he produced himself.

The concept could have stayed a gimmick, but it shows in the running order: after an intro, it opens with ‘Nuestro primer baile’ and closes with ‘Nuestro último baile’, and in between there is room for collaborations with Alazzar on ‘Astros’ and NeURO on ‘Dos soles’. He is also the only artist in this instalment with a venue tour under way across much of Spain.

Live: the venue tour stops in Salamanca (Potemkim, 13 November), Vigo (Doppler, 21 November), Barcelona (Sidecar, 26 November), Valencia (La 3 Club, 27 November) and Bilbao (Santana 27, Blue room, 18 December). Tickets, from €11.21, are available at baila.fm. To listen: the full ‘MERCURIO’ on YouTube or Dib on Spotify.

Pop and rap with a signature of their own: julia de arco and Brocki

Both releases came out on the same day, 10 September, and both are solo projects: a singer who produces herself and a rapper who turns his city into a storyline.

julia de arco, Sevilla pop in lower case

julia de arco was born in Sevilla in 2006 and writes her name, like her songs, in lower case. ‘picapica’, released on 10 September on Caries Records, plays with a deck of cards, spades, clubs and aces, to talk about someone who is hard to forget. According to her agency, it previews her first LP with the label.

What sets her apart is in the credits: she is listed as vocalist, songwriter and producer. At her age, taking the production credit on a label single says more about the project than any genre tag.

Live: no dates have been announced. To listen: ‘picapica’ on YouTube.

Brocki, the south of Alcorcón with an Afro accent

Brocki is a rapper from Alcorcón (Madrid). ‘BLACK JAMES BOND’, released on 10 September, mixes hip hop and Afro rhythms and, according to his team, will be part of his next album, ‘The Analyst’.

The lyrics switch between Spanish and English and name the south of Alcorcón as the starting point: it is a song of neighbourhood pride with its gaze fixed beyond. It runs to two minutes and ten seconds that get straight to introducing the character who, according to his team, will be the protagonist of the album.

Live: no dates have been announced. To listen: ‘BLACK JAMES BOND’ on Spotify or on YouTube.

How to put your project forward for Cantera

Cantera draws on what reaches the editorial team and what we discover at venues and festivals. If you have a project that is starting to take off, write to us at hola@modofestival.com with your Spotify link, your bio and your upcoming gigs. A form will follow later. The selection is editorial: what counts is a recent release and live dates on the horizon, and nobody pays to be featured.

Future instalments will be added to the Cantera page. To keep track of the stages where these acts could make the leap, the festival calendar lists the events coming up over the next few months.

Sources: press releases from Red Shoes (Mazu), Calaverita Records and La Central de Comunicación (The Son of Wood), Promosapiens (Finde Fantasma), Discern (CABA, Dib and Brocki) and La Mota Comunicación (julia de arco); each artist's official YouTube and Spotify channels, accessed on 21 October 2026; Diario de León and El Bierzo Digital, on Mazu; Neo2, on CABA and julia de arco; La Ganzúa, on The Son of Wood and Finde Fantasma; Entradas.com ticket sales, on the Finde Fantasma concert; the Potemkim venue website and baila.fm ticket sales, on Dib's tour.