y.e.a.r.n. for music
Music discovery has always been at the centre of my life. From browsing through my Dad’s CD collection, to talking to my bandmates in high school, to attending local gigs in my first year of university. Although the ways I discover new music are evolving, one thing has stayed the same: it is still the main drive of my existence. I discovered early on that the experience of music was my favourite thing about being alive: from listening to it live or recorded, playing it alone or with others, or even its physical sensation. It then became my obsession to discover every possible artist/song that would add to this experience. Moving to Amsterdam in 2021 introduced me to a whole new world of local bands and venues, that prioritise live music and community over profit. Suddenly, there was a new soundscape on my horizon and a city that provided spaces where artists were free to experiment and to be authentic in their form of expression.
From that moment on it became part of my weekly routine to attend local concerts. Eventually, I started my own band and became part of this community on stage and behind the scenes, while continuing to be a regular audience member. Throughout this journey, I have had Jeanne by my side - drummer of our band Prom Vagabonds, musical soulmate, friend and co-yearner. We’ve attended concerts together, headbanged together, waited anxiously at the front row of shows and shared every new artist we’ve come across with each other. This act of sharing became the backbone of our musical experience and brought us closer together. By discussing our obsessions, we invited each other into the soundtrack of our lives, and it became a ritual to our music-making and music-listening practice.
I share this feeling with Jeanne, who matches my level of excitement when I tell her to listen to the newest song “Cafe L” by London-based artist “Hornet”, who makes electronic alternative pop for melancholic and longing people. We’ve become particularly hyper-fixated on finding artists that evoke a dark, dissonant, experimental, and most importantly, ‘yearnful’ feeling in their music. On this especially yearnful day, we seriously sat down together and thought: what if people never know about these artists that we are obsessed with? It felt only natural that the next step in our friendship would be to share this experience with the world. These artists have contributed to such essential moments and emotional experiences in our lives, and we thought, who else could experience this? The people need to know!!
What is special about them, is that they are not contrived by commercial agendas, and this allows for the most exciting exploration of human emotion and experiences through sound.
Being part of the music scene in the Netherlands and being able to travel to other cities and countries has shown us how these underground music communities/scenes also exist beyond Amsterdam. What is special about them, is that they are not contrived by commercial agendas, and this allows for the most exciting exploration of human emotion and experiences through sound. But what this also means is that sometimes these artists and scenes don’t get the attention or visibility that they deserve.
This is what led us to create “y.e.a.r.n”, an online platform that serves as a digital archive with the aim to highlight local music scenes in the Netherlands and beyond, with a focus on this dark, dissonant, emotional and experimental rock music. Our goal with this is to highlight the similarities of music lovers and to connect people through their passions. In this way, we want to expand the experience of music beyond a solitary streaming experience, and highlight it as a communal fundamental human experience, one that takes place individually but also together in live concerts. We want to build and foster a community that cares about preserving and amplifying local music scenes, and we want to connect audiences from different cities around the world with scenes that might otherwise be unknown to them, using our digital presence to bridge artists and communities.
We chose the name y.e.a.r.n. because to yearn is to long, to desire intensely; and we identify ourselves in the urgency and desperation evoked through this verb. It is how we feel about sharing music and highlighting the people that make up these music scenes who are driven by care,passion and the belief that art and music can go beyond commercial means. We want to take away the power from algorithms and bureaucratic music institutions, where people have to play by certain rules to get attention and visibility, and challenge this through our platform.
Every month, we will share interviews with artists, audience members and people working within/contributing to the scene; our favourite yearnful tunes and guests on our monthly radio show at Radio WORM; reviews, short essays and song recommendations on our column in this very newspaper you’re reading.
You can already check out our first interview with Nils Keppel, a German artist who makes dark and layered music, ranging from yearnful ballads to energetic post punk. Coming soon is an interview with up-and-coming local band called “The Woman”, who are about to release their long-awaited first single on the compilation album “Girls To The Front”.
To keep up with all things y.e.a.r.n., check out linktr.ee/y.e.a.r.n.4music. Our first radio show episode will be aired live on Monday 23rd February at 19:00 on Radio WORM!
If you want to join in the spirit of sharing music or events, feel free to connect with us through our email yearn4music@gmail.com or send us a message on Instagram.
Wink to the world
More about y.e.a.r.n.
Mixcloud // Soundcloud