Anabel Englund / Debut Album ‘Messing With Magic’
by Shirley Ju
Anabel Englund is your favorite girl next door, and her personality comes to life in her music. The singer, songwriter, and DJ transcends the genres of pop and electronic with a knack for creating sonically-captivating records for listeners to escape in. Exuding both inner and outer beauty in all facets of her life, the rising star also arrives with a huge heart for humanity, women’s rights, the environment, and even skateboarding.
Known best for her features on smashes such as “Reverse Skydiving” by Hot Natured, “Underwater” by MK, and “Warm Disco” by Lee Foss, Anabel reminisces on attending her first ever rave in 2010 at EDC in Los Angeles. She states, “The way my life happened, it escalated so fast. In the beginning, I went from high school straight to raving. EDC is a huge crowd, I have all these old photos of me and my friends deep in the crowds. We’re all sweaty with the candy, we’d make our own outfits and candy.”
Fast forward to 2020, it was a completely full circle moment as she performed a virtual DJ set for EDC Orlando one decade later. She adds, “It was such an honor to be playing that stage, so cool.”
Luckily for Anabel, she’s been doing more performances than ever during the COVID-19 pandemic, providing feel-good vibrations to all music-lovers inside the comfort of their own homes. Now, she’s excited as ever to be unleashing her highly-anticipated debut album titled Messing With Magic, with lead singles “So Hot” and “Picture Us” both peaking to #1 on the Dance and Dance/Mix Show Airplay charts.
Flaunt caught up with Anabel via Instagram Live, who was stylishly rocking a teddy bear printed maternity shirt she purchased from the flea market on Melrose and Fairfax in Los Angeles. Read below as we discuss the importance of mental health, self-care tips, love for Madonna, the making of “Underwater,” the “Picture Us” visual, her fashion sense, and what we can expect from Messing With Magic.
Photo credit goes to: @paigestrabala / Paige Strabala
How does it feel to perform virtually versus in person?
I’ve been DJing so many things, so many more than I ever have before COVID. I don’t really know what to compare it to because if I was actually doing EDC Orlando in real life, it’d be this huge crazy thing—whereas it’s this big beautiful stage, but no one’s there. I don’t even know. [laughs]
What positives have come out of quarantine for you?
I’ve been DJing so much more. My mental health is something I’ve gained from everything slowing down, I finally got this chance to stop. My brain, I was able to relax without anything needing to be done. No one else was rushing to get anything done either. We’re all in his collective stop, so it really gave me a chance to look at my mental health and see how I was feeling. I was able to come face to face with the reality of what’s going on in my head. I was doing the rat race on autopilot: saying yes to everything, to all the money opportunities, but not paying attention to what I really needed. I needed everything to stop for a moment so I can figure out how to be happy really, that’s the biggest thing for me. Obviously releasing all the music, but mental health for sure.
What are some things you do for self-care?
In the summertime, I was meditating every single day. I got out of that routine, but I need to get back on it because it was helping me so much. I journal, I started taking these Epsom salt baths. I fill a bath and pour a huge bag of salt, all these essential oils and make it bubbly. You’re literally bathing in your own homemade ocean. [laughs] Not just a cup but half the bag, it feels so good.
Speaking of LA, you were born in New York and raised in LA right?
I was born in New York because my dad was doing a soap opera out there called Guiding Light. Once he had me and my brother, he wanted a different life and to be out of the scene. We moved to LA and started our lives there. He became a firefighter which is crazy, a completely different shift.
Talk about Madonna being your biggest influence.
I’m so grateful to live in the time of her because she has albums out from before I was born to now. I’ve grown up with different albums she’s put out, different reinventions. I’d be listening to an album of hers and make big life decisions based on some things she said that are so powerful and true. I’ve always admired how she doesn’t give a fuck, she’s going to do what she wants and break the rules.
What’s your favorite Madonna song?
Such a difficult question. One of my favorites I’ve been listening to is “Mother and Father” from the American Life album. It’s not one of her main songs, I love the lyrics a lot. I like how interesting it is.
Bring us back to when you created “Underwater.”
I wrote “Underwater” with my friends Paul Harris and Carl Ryden from the UK. We thought it’d be really great to bring MK on the project. I asked MK if he wanted to be a part of this track, he said yeah. He added his amazingness to it. I brought my friend Paige on to do the artwork and creative design for everything.
You really brought the song to life. Best memory from the video shoot?
I had the best day ever when I was doing the music video. I had this idea and vision, I talked to Ambar and this other woman Laura who made this treatment and really brought my vision to life. I spent hours of 9am to 9pm at a strip club in North Hollywood, really one of the best days of my life. [laughs] Loved every minute of it. I was thinking how does this have to do with what the song is? How is it going to correlate? I realize it matches perfectly because “Underwater” to me is a breakup song, but it’s also a love letter to the patriarchy. I’m done waiting up for you, I’m done trying to have you do right by me. I’m going to fucking do what I want to do now, and we’re sexy doing it too.
I was watching the “Picture Us” visual, what made you want to convey such an important message with a white and black friendship?
When people hear “Picture Us,” I showed it to my aunt and she thought it was a love song. When you hear it, it is a love song, but what I wanted to do with “Picture Us” visually is show your non-typical love story. It’s not this gender relationship but a friendship between two women. Your love you find doesn’t even need to be a romantic love, it can be a friendship. It can be a love with yourself, the journey with that. No matter what whenever there’s a time of darkness, having that little spark of love or someone, something, some place that brings you life and helps you continue moving forward.
How would you describe your fashion sense? I see a lot of glitter.
I’ve never been a fashion guru, but people talk about me in fashion. I wear what I want to wear. My cousin said “the stuff you wear, no one wants to wear that but for some reason it looks really good on you.“ I wear really weird shit, if it’s from the flea market that happens to be a maternity shirt. Sometimes even going to the Boys section at Target and finding funny, really cute cargo shorts. It sounds ugly, but there’s really cute ones. If you do have expensive taste, pairing it with something more expensive like a cute Gucci backpack. It’s good to combine styles, there’s more flavor and more substance when it’s different mixed together, versus if it’s all really expensive.
Photo credit: @paigestrabala / Paige Strabala
Photo credit: @paigestrabala / Paige Strabala
You enjoy skateboarding?
I do! Except I fell really bad. I went to the skatepark at night with my 15-year-old cousin, we only had our phone flashlights up to see where we’re going. I was going down these ramps, freaking my board went like that [motions hands] and I fell straight on my hip. It’s fun coasting, I love skateboarding when it's really flat, I’m not a skateboarder to do tricks and ollies. I want to cruise and vibe, listen to music.
Talk about being an advocate for women’s rights, and having a platform to be able to do so?
Being a woman, we have to fight for our place. Fight isn’t really the right word because I don’t feel like that’s what we need to do. I found my place by playing the game in recognizing there’s even a game to play. There’s so many women out there who do need help and guidance, that I wish I had as a teenager. I’ve come to this place in my life where I see how many girls need love, it’s important to me to find those who need it and support them. Everyone feels lost at some point, it’s important to be there in whatever way that means. Even if it’s donating money to Planned Parenthood or joining a program, it’s important to reach out.
You’re also passionate about the environment, me personally I’m psycho about recycling. I’ll take a plastic bottle out of the trash and put it in recycling.
Because it’s this problem that’s unfathomable and too big for us individually to fix. It feels claustrophobic when you see this perfectly clean plastic recycling in the trash, you’re like “I’m gonna put this in the recycling. I do the same thing. Now I’ve learned maybe the things we’re putting in the recycling don’t even get recycled. If you’re not rinsing out your containers, those aren’t getting recycled.
There’s a lot more to it, I care about the environment so much. Whenever l go to the beach, I pick up trash. Trying to do my part, I know I’m not solving the problem but it helps me feel a little better. I don’t know the answer to solving the problem but 4ocean is really cool, you buy a bracelet and it pulls a pound of trash out from the ocean. I donate to The Nature Conservancy, which they buy land so other people can’t build on it. I use Ecosia, it’s a bootleg Safari. When I’m searching things, people ask “what is that search engine?” Every 75 searches plants a tree, they plant the native plant species that actually help that specific area. That’s a really easy thing you can do.
What can we expect from your debut album, Messing With Magic?
My first ever album, I’m so excited. Crazy, the fact I’m releasing an album. It’s mostly the tracks I’ve already released, but I have 3 extra tracks. “Burn It” is going to be the lead single focus of the album, a piano and vocal track. There’s “Float” and “Spell My Name,” produced by Amtrac.
Meaning behind the title?
One of the singles is “Messing With Magic” with Jamie Jones, that embodies the entire essence of all the tracks. A sense of not actual magic, but magic as in self-love or things we never do but know are really good for us so we finally end up doing. I’m getting vinyls made for Messing With Magic, we’re going to get a limited bunch. I can’t put out an album and not put out vinyls for it, that’d be so wrong.