Under the name of Yeng, Muriel built her self a name for flawless and energising house sets. To learn were her inspiration comes from and how she approaches digging, Charline Giebel met with her to find out more.

When Muriel moved to Zurich, she knew very few people. The former pastry chef decided to visit as many record stores as possible. These stores gave her the feeling that she was not alone. While digging, she quickly found like-minded people and built up a strong social network.

Muriel, who is also known by her DJ name “Yeng”, particularly likes the fact that you never know exactly what to expect in a record store. Sometimes you only stay for 15 minutes, sometimes the shop becomes a meeting place and you spend the whole afternoon between the record shelves.

„You can go into the shop and immediately find ten great records, or you can stay for two hours and everything you hear is somehow... weird“ – Muriel

The record discoveries also vary from time to time: „You can go into the shop and immediately find ten great records, or you can stay for two hours and everything you hear is somehow... weird“, While having a coffee, Muriel gives me some insights into her own life, love of vinyl and connection to music.

Muriel's best recent buy:

We talked for a while about the emotions that owning a record evokes. We agree that records can bring back memories and provoke strong feelings such as joy. For Muriel, this also applies to records by Erykah Badu or Brandy. As a former hip-hop girl, she used to immediately dive into hip-hop and R&B shelves, and when she found a record by American artist Brandy, she was in seventh heaven.

When asked when she started collecting records, she says: „I've been collecting for over ten years. Mainly through my cousin. He worked at ‚Waxwell Records‘ in Amsterdam at the time. That's how I got into record collecting. Back then, I just went into the store and took what I liked. Over time, the whole thing got a bit more structured.“

Muriel now owns records of all genres from A to Z. Her favourite records reflect this diversity: from Latin Jazz to R&B and electronic sounds, everything is included.

Muriel's current Top 3 records:

Imaging by Oli Schmocker from studio canapé, video and words by Charline Giebel. She's the initiator and producer of "near mint" – a portrait series about Swiss vinyl culture – and also DJ as honeydip, art director and designer.

"near mint" is a series of portraits dedicated to the Swiss vinyl scene, highlighting the values that unite this small but special community beyond music: mindfulness, community, sharing and conscious listening.

For additional behind-the-scenes insights into the vinyl collections of the portrayed persons follow @nearmint.stories on Instagram.

This project originated as a bachelor thesis in the "Trends & Identity" programme at the Zurich University of the Arts.