With a synth-pop and new wave sensibility that echoes European groups like Duran Duran, Depeche Mode, Pet Shop Boys, and Mecano, the Venezuelan duo based in Las Vegas, Maiah & Gabriel, step back into the spotlight with the release of their new single, “Palíndromo.” The intense and metaphorical song uses love as a refuge and a form of catharsis in the face of pain.
Gabriel wrote the track following the death of one of his closest friends, which preceded the passing of another of his most trusted companions months later. The unexpected loss left the artist without answers and plunged him into deep sorrow.
The song is accompanied by an equally dramatic, cinematic-leaning music video, featuring subtitles that read both forwards and backwards as a metaphor for the single’s title, along with a static shot that captures the vocalist Maiah’s expressions of pain in close-up.
“For the video, Maiah became obsessed with turning the song into a one-take monologue, stripped of artifice, like a scene from a film. In these effect-driven times—where cinematic has become just a prompt on your phone and a template to fill green screens—standing in front of a camera for nearly four minutes to sing a song that makes you feel something isn’t exactly original, but it is profoundly nostalgic,” explains Gabriel.
The duo, who share more than twenty years of personal and creative partnership, have built their career from the most radical form of independence. Without a label, a fixed team, or aesthetic concessions, they have moved fluidly through film, music, literature, and visual art, developing a distinct language that now crystallizes into this conceptual project, unfolding song by song. Under the motto Forever Indie, they document every step of the process and share it with a community that witnesses the album’s birth in real time through Maiah’s YouTube channel.
The couple conceives each release as a chapter within a larger work. Their music videos function as interconnected scenes from a surrealist film, the songs as intimate letters, and the documentaries accompanying each track as an organic exercise in creative transparency.
Prior to “Palíndromo,” Maiah & Gabriel released “Blanco & Negro,” the first preview of this conceptual project, which clearly established the duo’s aesthetic direction. Accompanied by a Nouvelle Vague–inspired music video, the track framed a new, more mature, and focused chapter in their artistic evolution.
Over the course of more than two decades, Maiah and Gabriel have developed projects in film, television, literature, fashion, and music, always from an independent standpoint. From creating one of the first Spanish-language YouTube channels to capture the attention of the audiovisual industry to publishing widely circulated literary works and producing award-winning audiovisual projects, their journey is defined by self-management, experimentation, and a constant search for identity.
With this new single, Maiah & Gabriel deepen a narrative built from their most profound emotions, the same ones that have helped them cultivate a solid and loyal fanbase, while keeping the door open for listeners seeking proposals that refuse to fit into predefined molds.
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