Mareux is the project of Los Angeles producer and vocalist Aryan Ashtiani, whose music incorporates postpunk, goth, and the European electronic styles he heard via Polish MTV during his summers in Iran as a youth. Mareux’s 2013 debut, the four-song EP Decade, is full of sun-flecked synth-pop that mixes bouncy moods with its wistfulness, but he’s since drifted away from colors toward a palette of whites and grays. His beat-driven 2015 take on the Cure’s “The Perfect Girl” earned him buzz in the international darkwave scene, and his 2020 EP Predestiny trades much of Decade’s nostalgic imagery for atmospheres more suited to subterranean dance floors, with warped coldwave melodies, gritty industrial beats, and occasional vampiric vocals. By then, Ashtiani told VoyageLA in a 2020 interview, he was working as an EMT, with a dream of becoming a physician assistant focusing on underserved communities. I don’t know whether Ashtiani ever reached that goal, but his creative life has blossomed. “The Perfect Girl” found new fans via TikTok, and Ashtiana capitalized on that virality with a 2022 music video for the track that stars RuPaul’s Drag Race winner Violet Chachki. Last year he collaborated with LA guitarist and songwriter Zzzahara on cinematic pop gem “Bulletproof.” Despite the sadness in Mareux’s music, 2023 has been brighter still: after introducing mainstream audiences to his gloomy romanticism at this year’s Coachella, Ashanti has kicked off a U.S. tour in support of his first full-length, Lovers From the Past (Revolution/Warner). The compact record mixes tried-and-true coldwave (notably its title track) with a couple of idiosyncratic stunners, including the ethereal “Glass” (a collaboration with King Woman singer and producer Kristina Esfandiari) and the lush, melodic “Hurt.” This Lincoln Hall show should leave the crowd yearning for love and connection—and perhaps for one more gothic afterparty at the legendary Neo, which was once just blocks away.
Mareux Cold Gawd opens. Tue 5/23, 8 PM, Lincoln Hall, 2424 N. Lincoln, $20, $18 in advance, 18+