Compilations have consistently served as a captivating medium, acting as gateways to musical scenes, catalysts for exploration and discovery, and platforms for activism. Beyond offering listeners a diverse array of artists for increased value, these collections play a pivotal role in shaping and contextualizing regionally disparate or non-existent scenes in our current digital age. In this era where musical communities have migrated online, compilations emerge as a means for these scenes to take form and gain context, providing a unique bridge between artists and listeners.
This week, I stumbled upon Yearning for: Beauty, the inaugural release from the Chicago-based imprint Yearning. The fourteen contributions within this compilation span a spectrum from cold, trippy breakcore to suffocating ambience and crystalline house tracks. What I discovered was a compilation reflecting a burgeoning and intriguing scene emanating from Chicago and beyond. To delve deeper into this, I spoke with Michelle and Collin from the Yearning crew for additional context.
What inspired the genesis of this compilation?
Michelle: I've wanted to start a label here in Chicago for a while. This past summer, I was really steeped in the concept of beauty in general and reading a lot about different dualities (beauty as softness vs. sharpness, chaos/order, pleasant/painful, etc.). I realized that I'd been kind of pigeonholing myself into making fast, hard dance music - which I love - but I was getting super uninspired and sad. I kind of fell apart and started challenging myself to deconstruct my own vision of beauty + the process of making music and what I like; what sounds beautiful and feels good to make, to me. In doing that, I realized there are probably other producers out there who share this experience, especially those who typically make harder music, and figured it would be really cool to give everyone this prompt and present it as a spectrum of beauty. I ended up running with this loose idea and asked a handful of people, including Collin/Pharmacist, who expressed a similar sentiment of wanting to create something new in the community and now helps run the label with me.
Collin: I’ve been looking for ways to bring the people that I know have dozens of songs they don’t release together. Being able to do so in a way that launches a new project like Yearning was the perfect opportunity!
