Where most artists would double down on the sleek, sexy, and smooth-as-onyx darkwave and goth-pop that landed them in the spotlight in the first place, Mareux’s (Aryan Ashtiani) sophomore album – Nonstop Romance – is rough and unmannered, completely drunk in love and refusing to walk it off. Like a frilly valentine scuffed on hard pavement, it’s simultaneously gushing and fractured, distorted into illegibility but transparent in its intentions. Pre-save Nonstop Romance HERE
This week Mareux gave fans a glimpse into Nonstop Romance with the album’s most downhearted track – “Laugh Now Cry Later” via Revolution / Warner Records.
“I started writing this song way back in 2018 and it’s gone through several evolutions since then. At the time, I was coming off of a bad relationship and was feeling bitter. I brought it back recently, not inspired by my own misfortunes, but those of some of my friends. This song is a standout on the album, not because it’s better than the other songs, but because it’s the saddest song on it,” says Mareux.
Throughout Nonstop Romance, Mareux sets up his songs like Venus fly traps, beaming romance and thumping beats underlit in a sinister red. Maintaining that balance—between the album’s obvious pleasure and the quiet threat that accompanies it—is central to its ethos.
“I’m trying to make something that’s reflective of me getting older,” Mareux says. While that’s usually code for calmer, more intimate material, the top priority of the adult life Mareux both celebrates and questions is having fun. “Could you put it on in your house with people around and not bring the mood down?” was the question that guided him.
“I’ve noticed that as artists get better or more seasoned, they go for a more polished, studio sound and lose their grit,” Mareux says. “I like when music sounds like found footage.” While writing and recording Nonstop Romance in his bedroom in Los Angeles’ Lincoln Heights neighborhood over the span of 2024, he’d set up an old CRT TV and watched films on mute for inspiration—anything from Andrei Tarkovsky and Alejandro Jodorowsky to Hype Williams’ Nas and DMX-starring Belly. If this sounds like an unlikely combination, Mareux fits them together naturally in Nonstop Romance, blending smeared tape-residue synths into readymade club hits.
