Mareux

Mareux releases “Ébèné Fumé” featuring Riki from the forthcoming album 'Nonstop Romance' out June 27 via Revolution.

On the latest single from forthcoming album 'Nonstop Romance', due out on June 27th via Revolution / Warner Records, revered LA-based pop/darkwave musician and producer Mareux (Aryan Ashtiani) unites with multifaceted artist/singer Riki.

Following the heartbreak noir of "Laugh Now Cry Later", on new cut “Ébèné Fumé” Riki’s charismatic, confessional vocal performance is met with Mareux’s intricately crafted electronics for a smoky, slinking dance-pop track. Riki’s standout presence and masterful ability to merge music, movement, and style is followed throughout the striking “Ébèné Fumé” video which was created by Muted Widows’ Nedda Asfari.

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) second 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. 

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. 

On 'Nonstop Romance', Mareux prioritizes feel and vibe over clarity. Still, anyone who fell in love with his music via his viral cover of The Cure’s “The Perfect Girl” (now certified platinum Stateside, and gold in France)

Or the heartfelt noir of 2023’s Lovers from the Past will find plenty to swoon over here. This is an album that wears its title on its sleeve; it’s an earnest manifestation of Mareux’s desire to “make every day about making someone happy and giving them the best life possible.” 

Though he brings a meticulous ear to the textures and rhythms that clash across this album, it’s all in service to a greater goal. 

“I only care about one thing, and that’s being in love.” 

Mareux says, 

Mareux Live Dates:

Dec 12: Pomona, CA - Fox Theater

Dec 13: Los Angeles, CA - The Novo

Pre-save 'Nonstop Romance' album here