Taste Test: J Lind calls for beauty in rhythmic mountain cry, ‘For What It’s Worth’
The alt-folk performer remembers a hospice story for his tribal-layered new song.
Welcome to Taste Test, a song/video review series of SubmitHub-only gemstone
Life is what we make it and how we mold it all into something beautiful. Even so, there might be tragedy and hurt and anger you weren’t exactly counting on, and it’ll squeeze you dry. Harvesting vast sounds from folk and rhythmic world music, Arizona tale teller J Lind unearths his experiences volunteering at a hospice for a tapestry of thought-provoking chapters. Lead single “For What It’s Worth” employs one particularly gutting story of a young girl’s misery and the threadbare ends by which she must cling and climb a way back out. “And the women laugh from their cages in Bombay / As the children clap from Calcutta-bound freight trains / And their song is lost to the chaos of the Earth / But they still lift up holy hands — for what it’s worth,” his voice dices through the layers, percussion scraping against other instruments in a way that electrifies the emotions. When the mountains seem to crumble at his fingertips, there is still a mammoth of beastly importance to his words. Take heed.
“For What It’s Worth” is the lead-in and title cut to his new album, out later this year.
Listen below:
