In “Laugh Now Cry Later,” Mareux, the alias of LA-based artist Aryan Ashtiani, takes us straight to the emotional core of Nonstop Romance, his highly anticipated second album. Unlike the polished beats that catapulted him to Coachella just a year after his viral breakthrough with ‘The Perfect Girl,’ this new release sounds like pain and tears. It’s the saddest thing he’s made, and perhaps for that very reason, the most honest.
The track features devastating lines like “Although it breaks my heart/Don’t wanna make it stop.” It’s not a plea or a protest—it’s resignation, wrapped in distorted synths where Mareux’s voice, nearly buried under layers of reverberating sound, seems to fight its way out, as if it still has something left to say—but it doesn’t. He lets the beat drag him along while he repeats: “So I laugh now, cry later.”
“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 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,” he said.
What makes this track stand out isn’t just its lyrics; it’s the way it’s built. Ashtiani has said he loves when music sounds like “found footage,” and here, he nails that aesthetic: every sound feels pulled from an old tape, every emotion filtered through dust, wrapped in a strong lo-fi sensibility.
“I’ve noticed that as artists get better or more seasoned, they go for a more polished, studio sound and lose their grit,” he explains.
Nonstop Romance marks a shift in Mareux’s approach, one that focuses more on emotional atmosphere than sonic clarity. Still, it preserves the essence that made listeners fall for his music in the first place—whether through his viral cover of “The Perfect Girl” or the melancholic Lovers from the Past. The album’s title comes from a phrase often said by his girlfriend, Natalia, whose presence (and absence) haunts the tracks, especially the wistful “Blue.” For Ashtiani, romance means total surrender—raw love and constant attention.
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