Basya and Friends: Uncategorically AwesomeLast night’s Pharaoh’s Daughter show at the new Highline Ballroom -- a partially Jewcy-endorsed record release party -- made me extremely happy to be alive. 

Basya Schechter is the real deal: when she’s in the room, sniveling shreds of persistent irony pretty much run for cover.  Endless categorizing of this crazy new kind of Jewish identification -- hey, anyone heard of this new magazine called Heeb?  Apparently hip kids today are, like, into being Jewish!  Maybe they’ll all marry Jews and reproduce!  Look, a menorah full of dildos!  OMG, “vodka” rhymes with “latke”!  -- seem ever more inconsequential and lame in the face of such deeply felt, widely-based, religiously unquantifiable, utterly solid music.  Not that it’s an either/or proposition; there’s certainly room for whatever kind of allegedly “hipster” “movement” any Jewish Telegraphic Agency reporter cares to earnestly relay.  But it comes down to this: a dozen superb musicians -- from Israel, Japan, Switzerland, America, and Africa -- led in Hebrew, Ladino, and Arabic song by the magnificent, Yeshiva-educated Schechter, is a triumph of substance and style. 

That said, Tahl had better be sorry he stood me up.