“Wax does more than help to preserve a language. He demonstrates how Yiddish is a living, evolving mode of expression capable of articulating the most nuanced contemporary experiences. This isn't background music—this is an urgent, beautiful document of survival.” -Red Cell, The Santa Fe Reporter (full text here)

“The new album, ט​ײ​ַ​ט​ש [The Heart Deciphers], from New Mexico-based musical and linguistic polymath Jordan Wax may focus on his love for the Yiddish language, but it’s also an exploration of larger Jewish concepts of identity in a world gone mad. The songs on the album, nearly all of which Jordan wrote, are deeply contemporary, speaking to apocalyptic climate change, the ravages of capitalism, the bloodlust of power, the loss of culture, even the current violence in Israel/Palestine. It’s also a deeply personal album, drawn from Wax’s own Jewish heritage and filled with his thoughts on some of the most difficult topics of our current time.”

-Ethnomusicologist Devon Léger for KLOF Magazine (full text here)

“Vibrating, modal melodies kiss rhythms that are somehow compact and lithe, inspiring the body's natural motion. In slower, softer moments, Wax delivers swooning ballads rich with history…Singing both in Yiddish and English, Wax asks crucial, poetic questions about who a place belongs to — with the implied answers sounding as loudly and clearly as anything he actually sings…"The Heart Deciphers" furthers beautiful, necessary conversations that Wax clearly has been listening in on and participating in for a sustained time.” - Aarik Danielson, Columbia Daily Tribune (full text here)