Artist of the Month: BLOND:ISH

There’s a tendency to assume that all artists fit into neat categories, however niche they may be: maverick DJ, heady house champion, all-analogue wizard... the list is endless. But spend an hour chatting to BLOND:ISH and you'll realise she doesn't really fit anywhere. She is a DJ and producer, yes, but also a computer science major, crypto entrepreneur and parent who wants to improve the banking system but also eliminate single-use plastic. Those paradoxes aren’t contradictions; they’re all part of an underlying mission to help people live their best life. In a world that too often insists on simplicity, Vivie-ann Bakos thrives on a challenge and as she looks to collide the benefits of the blockchain with the realness of underground music communities. 

“I wear different hats all the time,” she explains from LA. Despite very obviously having a super busy mind, the Canadian speaks calmly and thoughtfully as she lazes sideways on a sofa in an oversized ice-hockey jersey. “Like, if I’m alone and not with my wife and kid, I become a super nerd. I’m only talking to my chads, like nerding out on everything." Right now, she's obsessed with upscale grocery chain Erewhon Market and her recently launched $NRG tokens, but is also sorting out releases and gigs for 2026. The way she toggles between talking about those worlds is as seamless as a good DJ mix. 

BLOND:ISH is the daughter of Hungarian immigrants who always worked hard. Her father, a sailor and record collector, encouraged her to explore cultures and indulge in curiosity and it was putting one of her mother's sewing needles on one of his records that first gave her the music bug. She was eventually drawn to electronic music and its repeating patterns and rhythms. Her analytical brain, honed through studies at university, gave her a technical edge from the off.

“I was a computer science major. I’m a nerd. I need to understand how everything works,” she says. But music, she realised, offered something a corporate coding job never could: a vehicle for positive creative impact. 

Her approach to both DJing and production has changed since she first emerged. While she once spent long hours hands-on, grinding out tracks and playing the usual circuit, she now thinks five steps ahead. “I’m here to help people live their best life,” she says. “So I need to understand how to put all the pieces together to get to those goals.” 

Nowadays, her process is experimental and communal. From a spontaneous 10-day studio session in Jamaica with Diplo at the start of the year to remixing classics like Empire of the Sun’s "Walking on a Dream" and The Pussycat Dolls' 2005 hit "Don't Cha," BLOND:ISH is always looking to serve up sounds that grab the attention and transfix people in the moment. Reworking classics like those, on top of Madonna and Taylor Swift tunes in previous years, is a surefire way to do that. “I want to keep the dialogue between the original and the new version,” she explains. “It should still feel familiar but work for a new generation.” 

This summer, BLOND:ISH was Pacha Ibiza's first ever female resident with her ABRACADABRA parties running each week in the early part of the season. “It was the most work I’ve ever had to do in my life,” she says. “There’s a lot of layers to promotion, legitimacy, politics, respect… it’s intense." Naturally, she thrived on the challenge and her midweek parties became known for more than just the music.  

Moments of magic, whether that's purple rain falling when she played the Prince tune of the same name at Burning Man one year, or the “hug cam” at ABRACADABRA, are central to her ethos. “These are the moments I love to create because it makes people remember,” she says, before detailing the various tricks and illusions ABRACADABRA's in-house mentalist would perform for people at each event. “Seeing people present without me saying, ‘Hey, this is a no-phone party.’ We do it organically, analogue, as an artist.” It’s the embodiment of her philosophy that music is energy.

BLOND:ISH’s latest frontier is crypto and the launch of her own $NRG tokens - a digital way to make the invisible power of music and community more tangible and lasting once the music stops. “Everything needs to be done through the token. If people want access to my time or get feedback on tracks, that’s the mechanism,” she explains. The token unlocks not only events and backstage access but also educational tools and resources to help people live their best lives. One of which is an extensive guide written with assistance from ChatGPT on how to solve every one of the major problems in the world. It’s a digital extension of the same philosophy of engagement and empowerment that drives her music.

By merging the digital world of tokens, crypto and live-streaming with physical connections like access to pre-gig 5km runs, backstage events and personal interactions, BLOND:ISH is blurring the line between artist and experience designer. She is clear that the energy cultivated on the dance floor - the shared experience, the joy, the uplift - should last beyond the dancing. “Through the token, you can embody that and that's what I’m trying to understand. Again, it’s zeros and ones, and I'm trying to understand the formula.”

For all the avant-garde concepts, parenthood has also added new dimensions to BLOND:ISH's creativity. Her 15-month-old son has found his way into percussion tracks, his bath-time sounds sampled into songs. “He gives me inspiration,” she says, laughing. “We record everything. He’s in the last three songs I made in Ibiza.”

Environmental consciousness is another layer to BLOND:ISH's complex identity. While admitting that lobbying or working in government on such issues is not her place, she uses her platform to push for sustainable practices in places where people will listen. “I make my events plastic-free and ask promoters to do the same. For ABRACADABRA, it improves every quarter because people care more."

BLOND:ISH lives simultaneously in multiple worlds - the club, the studio, the blockchain, the home. Unifying them all is the power of being present, especially when it comes to DJing and sharing music. 

“When you’re on that one vibe on the dance floor, there's nothing like it,” she says. That emotional feedback and the messages from people transformed by her work are what sustain her. She recalls a fan who escaped domestic abuse and used her track 'Self Love' as a mantra. “That’s what makes me happiest,” she says. “It’s the art, the intention. Everything else is layers on top.”
 

Check out BLOND:ISH' 'Artist of the Month' chart below: