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Pharaoh’s Daughter Unveils 6th Album, Songs of Desire
A deeply personal, 18-year musical journey through love, longing, and the sacred erotic
Pharaoh’s Daughter announces the release of the band’s sixth album, Songs of Desire (June 12, 2026, Tzadik) a profoundly intimate and long-gestating project inspired by the ancient biblical poetry of the Song of Songs. Developed over nearly two decades, the recording traces an artistic and personal evolution shaped by spiritual study, creative collaboration, motherhood, and an ever-deepening inquiry into the nature of love and desire.
Originally conceived by vocalist, composer, and bandleader Basya Schechter in 2008 following a chance meeting in Montreal with French producer Laurent Jais (known for his work with Manu Chao and Amadou & Mariam), Songs of Desire began as a series of exploratory demos rooted in Schechter’s engagement with Shir HaShirim, the Hebrew Song of Songs. Immersed in the text alongside scholar and musician Yosef Goldman, Schechter approached the material not as fixed scripture, but as a living, breathing exploration of longing- sensual, mystical, and unresolved.
“What drew me in was how complex and messy the text really is,” says Schechter. “It’s not about perfect love- it’s about yearning, projection, ecstasy, confusion. It felt incredibly human.”
Early iterations of the work took shape in New York and Paris, including a 2010 recording session following Schechter’s European tour with the vocal quartet Mycale, known for their interpretations of John Zorn’s Book of Angels. While those sessions yielded promising material, Schechter ultimately chose to reimagine the project within the sonic world of her genre-defying ensemble Pharaoh’s Daughter, where she has long blended Middle Eastern, North African, and Eastern European influences with devotional and experimental forms.
The album’s path, however, was anything but linear.
Beginning in 2012, Schechter entered a period of profound personal transformation—pursuing cantorial ordination through the ALEPH Renewal program while simultaneously undergoing years of fertility treatments. “It was an intense, overwhelming time,” she reflects. “I was searching for stability, for motherhood, for a spiritual path- and music had to take a back seat.”
In 2016, newly ordained and on the cusp of giving birth to her son, Schechter made an urgent return to the project. Collaborating with composer and producer Jamshied Sharifi (Hassan Hakmoun, Band’s Visit) , she recorded a series of foundational tracks just weeks before her due date. “The music wasn’t fully formed,” she recalls, “but I knew everything was about to change. I needed to capture something before that moment passed.”
For years afterward, Songs of Desire lay largely dormant as Schechter navigated life as a single mother. Attempts to revive the material- including remote collaboration during the pandemic -brought clarity but not completion.
It wasn’t until late 2024 that the album found its final voice. Partnering with producer Isaac DeBom, Schechter embarked on a year-long, in-person collaboration that slowly shaped the recordings into their finished form. Meeting regularly in New York, the two developed a shared sonic language, blending organic instrumentation with subtle electronic textures, allowing the emotional core of the music to fully emerge.
This final chapter was marked by both renewal and loss. During the album’s completion, Jamshied Sharifi passed away after a long illness. His early contributions remain an integral part of the record’s foundation.
Across 12 tracks, Schechter’s longtime band Pharaoh’s Daughter transforms the Song of Songs into a contemporary meditation on love in all its forms- romantic, spiritual, fractured, and enduring. Hebrew text intertwines with translations and fragments of other languages, Spanish, French, Arabic, Yiddish and English expanding the work’s emotional reach while preserving the intensity and ambiguity of the original poetry.
“I used to think I had to live inside a great love story to sing these songs truthfully,” Schechter says. “But over time, I realized the text itself isn’t about resolution- it’s about rooting in desire, in the searching. That changed everything.”
The result is one of Schechter’s most personal works to date- a record shaped by years of artistic explorations, spiritual devotion, heartbreak, resilience, and the transformative experience of motherhood.
About Basya Schechter
Basya Schechter is a New York–based vocalist, composer, and bandleader known for her pioneering work at the intersection of Jewish music, global traditions, and experimental sound. As the founder and creative force behind Pharaoh’s Daughter, she has spent decades reimagining Sephardic, Mizrahi, and Ashkenazi musical forms through a contemporary lens, earning critical acclaim for her distinctive voice and genre-defying compositions.
In addition to her work as a performer and recording artist, Schechter is an ordained cantor within the Jewish Renewal movement, integrating spiritual leadership with her artistic practice. Her music is deeply informed by years of study in sacred texts, as well as her commitment to exploring the emotional and mystical dimensions of sound.
Her ten previous recordings, including Haran (2007) and Dumiyah (2014), have established her as a singular voice in the world of contemporary Jewish and global music.
About Songs of Desire
Songs of Desire is a meditation on the ancient and the immediate- an 18-year artistic journey rooted in the poetry of the Song of Songs and brought to life through lived experience. It is a work that embraces contradiction: sacred and sensual, structured and improvisational, intimate and expansive.
Above all, it is an offering: an invitation into the beauty, complexity, and unfinished nature of love itself.
Songs of Desire will be released worldwide June 12, 2026, on John Zorn’s Tzadik label.
Basya Schecter oud, guitar, vocals, percussion
Daphna Mor flutes, shams, ney, vocals
Meg Okura violin
Shanir Ezra Blumenkranz bass, 12-string guitar
Yuval Lion drums Mathias Kunzli percussion
Uri Sharlin keys, piano, accordion
special guests
Brian Marsella key solos (1, 2)
Tamer Pinarbasi qanun
Omer Mor nylon string guitars (2, 4, 9, 12), vocals (3, 5, 6, 9, 11, 12),
bass (5, 7, 9), whistle (5), keys (5, 7), handclaps (3), percussion (2, 5, 7–9, 11, 12)
David Poe (1), Eleonore Weill (4, 6), Gaby Endo (9), Daniel Freedman (6) Saadya Schechter (12), Yosef Goldman (12), Justin Gray (10) vocals
Yisroel Schechter (1, 6), Avi-Fox Rosen (3, 6, 8) guitars
Aaron Johnston drums (5)
Amit Peled saz (2)
Tal Mashiach (12), Ben Zwerin (8) basses
David Buchbinder trumpet (10)
Rich Stein percussion (8)