Remix contests, when done right, can be the coolest things in the world (ultra-hipster warning: refer to the Dismemberment Plan's fan-remixed best-of album that was their final release) or can, of course, be hackneyed cliches.

In honor of Y-Love's impending debut album, Shemspeed is throwing open the master-tape vaults and offering open access to the sounds and vocals, and hoping you come up with something better than they did. (Well, not better than -- it's a pretty incredible album, okay, let's hype it and say it's the best hip-hop album put out by a Bostoner Hasid EVER.)

So do your best -- if you're not sure how to make a remix, download Ableton to get started -- and we'll see what happens. Word is, next they're going to let you kids run wild with Pharaoh's Daughter, the Sephardic/world-music phenomenon who sounds really amazing without the use of blips and beeps. See if you can change my opinion about that.

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.