Fake Laugh

Emerging from London in the mid-2010s, Fake Laugh filtered jangly guitar pop and melancholy lyricism through a soft-focus lens across a series of early EPs. As the solo outlet for singer/songwriter Kamran Khan, who also fronts Lovepark, the project delivered a more unified take on its bittersweet indie pop with the self-titled album released in 2017.

Khan, born in Berlin yet long based in London, started developing solo material even as he led the indie rock band Lovepark. That group put out its first EP, 21/12, in May 2014; a few months afterward, Khan issued the Freely EP under the Fake Laugh name, recording everything himself. Fierce Panda and Art Is Hard Records handled its limited distribution. He followed with two further self-released Fake Laugh EPs in 2016, Great Ideas and Ice.

While balancing Lovepark duties with a role as guitarist and bassist in Amber Bain’s the Japanese House, Khan signed to Headcount Records for the project’s first full-length. Issued in 2017 and co-produced with Theo Verney, the self-titled LP refined the earlier dreamy textures without abandoning them, reworking several prior tracks and featuring Khan on every instrument.