Anna Robinson has a family history of moving around, and since her 2018 breakthrough single Nothing To Regret propelled her to international status the Greymouth-born pop artist has mostly made London her home. April saw her indie UK label release an EP written over the last few years, produced by long-time collaborator Charles Macdonald and funded with a $44,000 NZ On Air New Music Project grant. ‘Heavenly Hell of Mine’ is five tough punching, self-evaluating pop singles, focused on the conjunction of beauty and pain. Robinson talked through it with Lucie Watson.

Given the melancholic nature of the themes explored in Robinson’s new EP ‘Heavenly Hell of Mine’, released in April via LAB Records, I’d reasonably be forgiven for thinking that I was meeting up with someone living on the more morose side of life. With raw themes of body dysmorphia (on David Blaine), villains in the music industry (The War On Art), complicated relationships with the self (Landslide), and surrender (Wild Horses), it does feels like this is the kind of person really going through something. 

Yet, sitting outside a North London pub on a warm spring afternoon is a bubbly, confident and upbeat pop artist who, despite having experienced some real lows in her young life, attributes her cheerful nature to personal development, and a new understanding that she can surrender to whatever life throws in her direction next. Having recently returned to London after four months in Aotearoa, Robinson also credits that beautiful country, and more specifically her hometown Nelson, as a place that heals and transforms through simply existing and slowing down.

“Going back to New Zealand allowed me to just exist and be,” she says. “I don’t even know how to explain it, but I think so much growth took place without me actually doing anything, just being, you know? I knew I needed to go back there, and lie in a river bed and put rocks on my body.” 

She draws parallels to this replenishment time with lockdowns during Covid, when there was no pressure to be anywhere, and the freedom that gave to explore new creative ideas and sit with them for some time. 

“We just made so many terrible and great songs! Like there were bad songs, there were great songs… it was full-on exploration. It taught me a valuable lesson about the importance of taking time off – it’s so important, especially if you’re creating things.”

Robinson describes ‘Heavenly Hell of Mine’ as the second of a trilogy of EPs, with the first, 2023’s ‘Chasing Nirvana’, being about blindly chasing something because you think it’ll make you happy. 

“And then actually realising, ‘Oh, I have to deal with my negative self-image beliefs, oh and grief. Yeah that’s something I should probably deal with too.’ Then ‘Heavenly Hell of Mine’ is about the confrontation of beauty and pain being so intertwined.” 

I ask about her writing process, and whether some of these songs were more confronting to write than others. 

“David Blaine was so hard to write. That was fully delving into 14 years of having an eating disorder, and then realising I’m in a place where I can write a song about that now – and it feels like a weirdly nice experience, because I felt healing in the process.”

“Who is David Blaine?” I ask. 

“He’s a magician… I had just sung a melody and used the same syllables as his name – ‘dada dane’ and then Charles (Robinson’s long-standing creative partner) said, ‘It’s kind of like you’re saying David Blaine.’ And I looked him up and realised there’s a concept in that because he’s an illusionist… he did this crazy experiment in London where he put himself in a glass box. He didn’t eat or drink anything for 45 days, and the world was watching him through this glass box – and I felt such a connection to that with these lyrics. So that’s when I fully dived in as it was so symbolic of what that time felt like for me.” 

The final song on the EP, Matisse’s Garden, may be the most simple in terms of sound and production, but its powerful message is in keeping with Robinson’s refreshing and honest approach to songwriting.

“It explores what can happen when we seek love to unknowingly fill a void or lack within ourselves,” Robinson explains, adding that the relatively soft, mostly acoustic song came effortlessly. 

“I’d written another song that I really loved, so I decided that it would be the first song of the next EP. Because I got so excited about that, it just allowed me to write the last song of the project without any pressure – and now it’s one of my favourites,” she laughs. “Here’s a moment you can rest your ears from me screaming at you!”

At this point in the interview I’m confident enough to admit that I was expecting someone a bit more downbeat and Robinson smiles. 

“Writing this EP was a cathartic, beautiful experience… but when I was finished I was like, ‘I need to take a nap, a long, long nap!’”

Robinson has also found some radical self-acceptance and ability to let go of perfectionism, with 2025 being nominated as the year to tell herself, ‘it’s not that serious’. I suggest this bodes well given an industry that is content and algorithm obsessed, and Robinson acknowledges her trials and tribulations in navigating social media during her short career, 2020 – 2022 being particularly tough social media years for her. 

“I didn’t really understand how to be a content creator. I really struggled with that for that time, but I’m coming around to the idea that you can kind of do it how you want to do it.

“Before I felt like everything had to be polished and mysterious, but now people crave realness and authenticity! Maybe that’s a positive spin of just letting go from trying to be so perfect. I no longer have that voice in my head that’s like, ‘This is terrible, what are you doing?’ She’s gone! So I feel a lot more like myself, which is nice, but it took a long, long time to get to that point.” 

After getting by for 18 months house-sitting, the pop / singer-songwriter is now firmly cemented in a long-term housing situation in North London, and has surrounded herself with a really supportive creative community. 

“When you fill your world with people that are excited about what you do, and who help you fully find yourself, it’s such a gift! You’ve got to find your family wherever you go, and that really gives you the nourishment to do what you need to. We lift each other up. And that’s probably why London feels so great. I used to think I had to be sad to create. But no, you just need support.”

Our conversation shifts to goal-setting. Robinson describes herself as spontaneous, and credits her current manager for helping her to set realistic milestones and work with intentional focus. 

Her face lights up as she talks about her vision for live performance, something else she’s determined to focus on this year. She wants to offer her fans an immersive experience, bringing her EP concepts to life with set design and a dynamic performance with a band, but also with solo performances weaved in, Robinson playing keys and guitar.

This leads us back to the third and final EP. Can her fans expect more melancholy? 

“Fun pop is how I’m seeing it,” she beams. “But I’ll always have melancholic undertones in my writing… at least one song has to be a little bit sad!”

It seems that even in a season of growth, a little bit of sadness still has its place – and in Robinson’s hands, acceptance of that is something to celebrate.