Set up the velvet ropes and roll out the red carpet: a new VIP is coming to town. By that of course we mean a very important pony: horsegiirL, the Berlin-based DJ and producer distinguishing herself with a festival-stealing blend of equine whimsy and banging, high-BPM Eurodance. You may recognise her from her breakout track, last year’s TikTok-viral banger ‘My Barn My Rules’, or an awestruck friend may have simply told you: “Did you know there’s a masked DJ who says she’s a half-person, half-pony and never gets out of character?”
When NME catches up to horsegiirL, or Stella, on Zoom, she’s just come from galloping around Los Angeles, running errands while marvelling at the weirdness of Hollywood Boulevard. It’s “much more concrete and way less green” than Sunshine Farms, where she grew up, Stella confirms. “You just constantly see billboards and people, and everything is loud, fast, grimy and gritty.”
horsegiirL’s supercharged trajectory from the country to the city couldn’t have been predicted. When ‘My Barn My Rules’ spread like wildfire on TikTok, it had been a year since its release as part of ‘Farm Fantasies’, a collaborative EP with MCR-T, a fellow member of the Berlin collective Live From Earth. Both MCR-T and horsegiirL had mentally put a bow on the project and moved into different headspaces – then Australian content creator Olly Bowman did what’s been dubbed the ‘shoulder injury dance’ to the song, which sent it viral. “That’s really the one thing: you just never know when something can pop off,” Stella says.
Credit: Cobrasnake / Mark Hunter
Adding more fuel to the horsegiirL fire were her DJ sets, where people thrilled to the sight of a half-horse, half-human gleefully setting the decks aflame with sets of happy hardcore, gabber, techno and Eurodance; they’ve racked up thousands if not millions of views on YouTube alone.
It’s no surprise then that horsegiirL has been touring hard for the past two years – “pretty much non-stop” – and become a fast festival favourite thanks to bookings at the likes of Sonar, Field Day, III Points, Portola and more. From visuals to set design to glam, horsegiirL has worked to take her show to the next level. “There’s a lot more that goes into making it a memorable experience for the audience,” she says.
“You just never know when something can pop off”
Some things have had to give: “I make less music than I would like to, and I think that’s the biggest change. The more successful you become, I guess the less time you really have for the thing that you love the most.” The good news, though, is that horsegiirL does have new music to share: today, she drops a music video for ‘Take It Offff’ from ‘V.I.P.’, a “travel EP” she hammered out in different cities as she toured the world. If ‘Farm Fantasies’ was focused on horsegiirL’s humble origins on the bucolic Sunshine Farms, ‘V.I.P.’ is about her current jetset lifestyle, which “sounds way more glamorous than it really is,” Stella cautions.
Not that you can particularly tell. “Baby,” she vamps on the sparkling opening track ‘Material Hor$e’, “money, fame and power really changed me.” On Namasenda collab and cheeky shoplifting skit ‘Girl Math’, she pouts: “Could have been a doctor, but the outfit isn’t cute – I’m in love with making money, in my money-making mood.” And the horsegiirL modus operandi is clear on the pounding, hypnotic ‘Eat, Sleep, Slay, 🔁’ (or ‘Eat, Sleep, Slay, Repeat’), which boasts a monstrous drop that her fans – called ‘Farmies’ – have already been going feral to at her sets.
horsegiirL makes sure to feed her insatiable Farmies with this EP, but also expands her sonic and emotional palette. “I know this sounds maybe cheesy, but it is a new chapter,” she says. “I haven’t really released a body of work that is as diverse in its approach to different styles of electronic music.” There’s a track that celebrates hardstyle – which evokes for Stella scenes from her childhood of “village kids in polos listening to hardstyle and practicing jumpstyle or shuffle” – and another that mixes breakcore with dreamy shoegaze textures. ‘V.I.P.’ is fun and flossy, but also sensual and romantic.
The sense of adventure extends to horsegiirL’s new live show, Hayfever, a vehicle for Stella to create her own idyllic party space where you can “connect to your inner child”. Besides a curated line-up, she wants activities and games; on the moodboard are Canadian kids’ TV series Nanalan’, A Bug’s Life and the Hans Christian Andersen fairytale Thumbelina. horsegiirL has big ambitions for Hayfever. “I would love to do, like, a musical,” she laughs. “That’s my big goal, eventually, having a live show where it’s a whole story arc.”
“It is a new chapter. I haven’t really released a body of work that is as diverse in its approach to different styles of electronic music”
Hayfever would not be Hayfever, though, without the enthusiastic participation of horsegiirL’s Farmies. Stella’s voice rises with excitement and admiration as she talks about them: “You cannot choose your fans, but I love mine. It’s just always breathtaking how sweet everyone is, how positive the energy is. And everyone is so DIY!” From whimsical costumes to painstakingly handmade gifts and totems, Farmies aren’t afraid to express their creativity – or to let loose. “Farmies come to frolic, play, gallop and have a fucking great time.”
The more we speak about Hayfever, one can’t help but feel that horsegiirL is striving not just to realise her own artistic vision, but also to craft a space of love and care in a complex and cruel world. “It’s incredibly easy to get people’s attention with hate, and that’s exactly what a lot of social media also thrives upon: anger, fear and riling each other up politically about social issues,” she says. “Making people happy and helping them tap into a more peaceful and fun side of themselves is something I take quite seriously.”
Ultimately, the horsegiirL ethos is connection – that much is obvious from her answer when NME asks: what can humans learn from horses? “You are better together,” she says. “We are herd animals. So are humans. To come back to that, ask yourself: ‘is this more connecting or dividing?’
“And yeah, I don’t know… We eat very healthy. Oats are greats. And carrots and apples!”
horsegiirL’s ‘Take It Offff’ is out now, with ‘V.I.P.’ on the way
English (US) · 