Will Jones
Tash Blake treats pop like a living archive and herself as curator and recontextualizer. The 24-year-old Los Angeles artist pulls from the divas who came before her, understanding with fierce authenticity what made them matter and where she can meet them and stand on her own, and her latest outing, “cologne,” is proof of just how transformative and unique she can be.
“Cologne” is deceptively simple; it’s straightforward and lacking in fluff, but it doesn’t cease to be a boundary-pushing piece that toys with the pop genre, like its rules were made of silly putty. She’s a vanguardist and a visionary, but she doesn’t skew the solid basics at all, which is why she has so much Gaga/Madonna energy about her while being undoubtedly distinct and herself.
It’s amazing how little “colonge” Tash Blake’s voice alone transforms every moment into its own scene, the way through-composed rock does, except here it’s all about texture and feeling rather than structure. She moves from luxurious pop diva to ethereal dream-pop in one swift motion, no tone whiplash whatsoever.
The music video is both a typical and completely unexpected pop spectacle—if that even makes sense. It’s set in what I can only describe as a mental health institution run by Balenciaga. The result is fun, clever, bold, and just a little nostalgic.
A dancer and performer as much as she is a singer, Tash Blake understands that a song lands differently when the body knows what to do with it. Her two EPs and touring history prove she’s been putting in the work, but the real draw is the world she’s assembling around the music. Grungy textures meet glam aesthetics; it’s high-concept but unbelievably easy to grasp at the same time.
Tash Blake wrote “cologne” while in Sweden, and it hit her like an epiphany. This was the song that unlocked her true artistic power. She stopped worrying about conventional songwriting or limiting structures, choosing instead to trust the instinct that pushed her further. That instinct became the foundation for everything that followed, planting the seed of a world she calls The Pop Dungeon.