Venezuelan singer-songwriter Ane Diaz released her newest single + video “Clavelito Colorado.” The somber track recounts the lonely life of a cowboy: too busy and downtrodden to pick the beautiful carnation he sees on the road during his travels. Opening with Diaz’s clear, powerful vocals full of emotion, a roil of steady drums and strings saunter in to highlight the track’s haunting tone. “Clavelito Colorado” is the latest single off of Ane Diaz’s debut album of reimagined Venezuelan folk songs Despechada, out June 9 via Rain Phoenix’s label, LaunchLeft. 
 
The track is paired with a captivating video that takes viewers through a mesmerizing loop of never-ending oil paintings, ebbing and flowing through the many faces of townsfolk. Directed by Nathalia Pizarro, the video was generated by a Stable Diffusion application, a latent diffusion model that utilizes a kind of deep generative neural network. It is primarily used to generate detailed images conditioned on text descriptions, though it can also be applied to other tasks such as inpainting, outpainting, and creating image-to-image translations guided by a text prompt. 
 
To celebrate the release of Despechada, Ane Diaz will also be playing a record release show on June 12 at Zebulon in Los Angeles in support of the psychedelic, Indian classical music collective, Liberate Elemental Forces.

Ane Diaz’s unconditional love for her homeland of Caracas, Venezuela remains at the forefront of her musical journey. “Despechada means heartbroken or without your soul,” says Díaz. “It’s a very powerful word used for love affairs, but that’s also how I feel about losing my country.” Despite the meaning of the word ‘Despechada,’ the album feels like home. The ten tracks, handpicked by Diaz’s mother, result in a sonically lush and lyrically nostalgic journey through her heritage as she honors her memories of Venezuela. Produced, mixed and mastered by Jim White, Paul Fonfara, and John Keane, the project continues Diaz’s overarching themes of family orientation and paying homage to her homeland, with her fear of forgetting cherished memories of Venezuela fueling the inspiration behind the reimagined renditions of the iconic folk songs presented on the album. The album’s cover art also features a painting done by her brother Miguel of their cousin Vanessa.
 
Ane and Rain Phoenix first met in the late ‘80s during Gainesville, Florida’s booming music scene, and their paths haven’t stopped crossing since then. Diaz released her debut EP Venezuela (produced by Phoenix) in 2018, with her single “Los Ejes de Mi Carreta” following in 2020, grabbing the attention from the likes of Jonathan Richman (The Modern Lovers, with whom Diaz opened for in 2018) and Michael Stipe (R.E.M.). Her navigation through the American underground music scene is what ultimately led to her reconnection with her Venezuelan roots. “After I went through a few genres, I realized, ‘this is me,’” Diaz says. “It’s my bliss. It’s really where my voice lives.”

Photo Courtesy: Thomas Dozol