Paula Garcia Stone is a British/Spanish sound artist who divides her creative output between sound pieces and visual works. She’s back with a new album called A Long Wait which is out now via Flaming Pines. According to the press release, it explores vulnerability and isolation during 2020 to 2021. Placed in the “clinically extremely vulnerable” category, Paula García Stone was not able to leave her house at all during the lockdowns of 2020. She was also unable to walk for most of the year due to fractured bones in one of her feet.
A Long Wait is the product of this period of grief, loneliness and frustration. Turning to her domestic and local soundscape for inspiration, she composes here with lawn mowers, medical equipment, insects and her own breath. “I found that generally my neighbourhood all had their lawn mowers out and were doing DIY, unlike the new found silence people seemed to be describing at the time. Somehow I managed, and I found domestic sounds and my own medical paraphernalia interesting and useful in the bigger context of my environment. I hoped to amplify grief and at times frustration, as well as the rhythm of time passing by,” she explains.
Both sadness and the convoluted and disorienting experience of time are important themes in this album, but it also marks lighter, more uncanny moments amid the difficulties of the past year. Heavy rainfall, experiences of extreme heat and humidity, and even a visitation by flying ants, swirl together in the compositions, sitting uneasily alongside García Stone’s quiet breaths, medical devices and discontent. An album of both loud and quiet dismay as well as unexpected comforts and surprises.
Check the full streaming below.