Itโs not every day that a doctor turns a hospital corridor into a recording studio, but thatโs exactly the creative alchemy Dr. Alejandro Estrada brings to the table. The Glasgow-based physician-musician behind ESTRADA Music Project has dropped another introspective gem with his upcoming single, โW/Lโ (Waiting List), a slow-burning, seven-minute track that unpacks the emotional and psychological weight of healthcare delays.
Right off the bat, โW/Lโ sets a deeply atmospheric tone. It opens not with a melody, but with the muffled chatter of voicesโpresumably patients or familiesโlayered beneath a shimmering, glassy tone that loops like a stuck clock. You wait. Just like in the real thing. Then, boom: the beat drops in after more than a whole minute as guitar strums glimmeringly and a writhing sharp electronic vibration builds.
Dr. Estrada sings in a thick, enigmatic voice that spills emotion, cracked open and vulnerable. He sings mystically while sounding deeply wounded. And then come the flat, mechanical, even apathetic spoken voices, amidst his lines. Contextually, we can connect them to the numbed-out admin we all know too well. Waiting list. Six months. Maybe longer.
The production is gorgeously textured without being overstuffed. Synths flicker in the background like fluorescent lights, while the rhythm pulses slow and deliberate, mimicking the passage of time that feels both endless and invisible in a hospital waiting room.
โW/Lโ isnโt trying to be a protest anthem. Itโs a patient sigh stretched across seven minutes, a sketch of system fatigue. But by the end, it lingers like a question you canโt shake off: How long is too long to wait for help? Find out with each simulation repeated on Spotify.
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Review by: Naomi Joan