How horsegiirL became pop’s wildest new environmentalist
With her debut album Nature Is Healing, Berlin-based DJ and producer horsegiirL is transforming hyperpop absurdity, Eurodance chaos and climate anxiety into one of 2026’s most unexpectedly compelling pop statements. Speaking to EE72, the internet-born artist discusses eco-spirituality, standing out, tree climbing and why she’d never join the celebrity space race.
For those unfamiliar with Berlin-based horsegiirL, AKA Stella Stallion, here’s a quick precise: born half-human, half-horse and raised on Sunshine farms, her musical talents were discovered by, ahem, Whitney Horston during the annual harvest festival. From there, Stallion became one of the planet’s most in-demand DJs before releasing her debut single – Harvest Heartbreak – back in 2022. While her early tracks and EPs were often a heady (and polarising) mix of 90s techno, happy hardcore and gabba (think German dance titans Scooter but more ludicrous), her forthcoming debut album, Nature Is Healing, adds a huge dollop of pure pop to the mix. Channeling Ray of Light-era Madonna, pan pipe mood music and a climate crisis-focused spiritualism, it’s destined to be one of 2026’s biggest surprises.
Speaking over Zoom on a hot and sticky morning, Stallion was fresh from an invigorating breakfast and ready to tackle everything from DIY DJs to the benefits of standing out to the pros and cons of climbing trees.
So, what did you have for breakfast?
I had two boiled eggs, plus coconut yoghurt with raspberries, blueberries and some pomegranate seeds. And some fibre. I’ve been sticking to this routine for the past six months now because with touring and everything, it’s a very intense life and you have to treat it like you’re an athlete. I never really was a routine person; I don’t have a set bedtime, I don’t have a set wake-up time. I think many artists, or a lot of artists, don’t, but when it comes to eating in the morning I really noticed that if I don’t prioritize my health and my body and fuel it then it’s hard to maintain.
Are you quite disciplined in general?
I am. But I’m not pedantic or anything. I would say if I want something, I have a very hard work ethic. I stick to the rules that I set myself. I was raised with this belief that if you’re going to commit to something you have to see it through, and the one thing you have is your word. That’s why it was very very very hard for me to cancel a DJ set last week. I was so sick and it was really my team who was like, ‘You’re not going to go there’.
At the start of your career, was it quite exciting to enter the DJ world and offer up something a bit more interesting than, e.g., a white man in Vegas?
Yeah, it was very exciting. Looking back now, it was so punk because I just didn’t know anything about the DJ world, or half of the buttons on my equipment. I would pull up to clubs and I didn’t know the lineup – people would be like, ‘Oh, my God, you’re playing that at that club, that’s so iconic’. And I’d be like, ‘Yeah?’ I just want to have a good time. That sounds maybe a bit ignorant, but also it was very freeing because I didn’t have to think about it. At that time when we’d just come out of the pandemic, it was still, as you said, a very different landscape on lineups. DJs would have one genre and they wouldn’t really detour from that. But at that time, me and maybe a few other people were the only ones that were doing really fast and gritty, euphoric SoundCloud edits of gay icon pop songs. It felt really young. It felt like, ‘Okay boomers, Gen Z is here now’.
You’ve talked in other interviews about being desperate to make an album and now it’s here! How does it feel?
It’s a mixed bag of emotions, because on the one hand, I am over [the album]. When the time comes that it actually is about to be released, in my head, I have heard this record a million times, so I’m ready to do new things. But I feel excited, but also nervous, and curious as to how people will receive it. And also which track will be picked by the audience. Because I think nowadays it’s very hard to predict a single per se, you know? The audience has so much more power in making a song a big moment. And oftentimes those aren’t the ones that you thought that it would be.
Would you rather people have an extreme reaction, so either ‘I love it!’ or ‘I hate it!’, than just ‘this is fine’?
Yeah, of course. I think being ignored is worse than getting any sort of reaction. I think if art only triggers you into giving a shoulder shrug, then that is not what we make art for. I think in the best way it does something to you, whatever that emotion is. So, yeah, I would prefer people to have an extreme reaction.
Obviously, you do stand out in a crowd and people have reacted to that in different ways. Do you enjoy being polarizing or causing a bit of a conversation? Is that part of your DNA?
Yes and no. There’s an ambivalence. On one hand, I love privacy. I lead a very chill life and I want to maintain that when I’m not on stage. But at the same time, there is something really powerful in walking into a room and being the centre of attention. It gives you a certain power to talk about things that you care about, or to stand for things that you find important. But I don’t think I’m a fan of provocation for provocation’s sake. It’s fun to play with, but it’s not the main thing you should be doing.
Tell me more about the conceptual framework of the album.
It boils down to my love for this planet and for everything that is on this planet. During the process of writing the album I was reading a lot of books on different environmental topics, from philosophy to scientific books, that really inspired a lot of the tracks on the album. I felt like there wasn’t really much music, especially in the mainstream pop space, that actually talks about the world and how we are in this world from an interspecies perspective. Pop writing especially can oftentimes be about romantic love or friendship, and those are amazing topics but I wanted to talk about something else.
Has nature always been something you’ve been obsessed with, or has it taken on more importance as you’ve become more successful? Does it offer a place for you to pause and relax when things get hectic?
I was always obsessed with nature. As a little kid I had this big magnifying glass thing where you could look at bugs. I never understood kids that would rip the leaves off of bushes and trees as we were walking past. It just always hurt me.
Would you ever climb a tree?
Yes, I would climb a tree. I have climbed trees, but I would make sure that it’s a tree that can hold me, and that I didn’t break anything in the process.
Would you climb a person?
If they consent to me climbing them. I’m a tall bitch. It would have to be a tall person for me. But the way I think about nature is not a separate thing. We are nature. You are nature. I’m nature. And I think there’s an infinite amount of inspiration in nature, from a cellular level to a massive macro level. It’s just there’s so many things. It just breaks my brain. What’s outside of planet earth is also equally interesting, but I don’t fully understand the whole obsession with going to other planets when we have this incredible planet here.
Would you ever do a Katy Perry and just pop up to space?
100% no. Especially not for, like, 10 minutes taking selfies. Like, girl…
How keen were you to strike a balance between climate crisis sermons and big fun dance-pop bops?
In the beginning, when it was still just an idea that was forming, I did find it tricky because I don’t want to be preachy because I don’t have the answers. I don’t know how to solve these huge challenges that we are faced with. And I am not claiming that I have the answers. I think the key for me was really the love aspect. A lot of us are incredibly tired and just apathetic almost towards the future because it feels so doomed and there’s nothing we can do. We have to just accept the status quo as if the future has been written. And that is very dangerous when we stop imagining alternative futures because you can always hope for everything.
Recent single An Apple A Day is ludicrous in all the good ways. What inspired that song? Just your love of apples?
Yeah, I had this lyric, “an apple a day keeps the doctor away”, from the saying. And then I wanted to be a bit personal as well and tell the story of how my dad sat me down and talked to me about apples. It’s important to get your vitamins, but also the apple obviously stands for so much more. It’s knowledge, it’s ancestral wisdom and carrying that with you and passing that on to who comes after you. And I think the doctor can also stand for so many more things than just an actual doctor. It can be the pharma company, or people trying to sell you cures.
What do you want people to learn about you from the album?
Two things. I feel like for me it feels like I’m being boxed into this DJ label, and I love DJ-ing, it’s one part of my expression, but I would never really think of myself as a DJ even though that is mainly how I perform. But I am a musician, a writer, a producer and a singer. That’s my main form of expressing myself. So I hope in a way that this album can show that a bit more because it is so vocal heavy and production heavy. The rest is up for people to interpret.
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