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Born in Maine, and raised with her brother in Connecticut by adoptive parents, Joan Wasser began studying violin in elementary school. She went on to study classical violin at university, and was drawn to new compositions written for smaller ensembles. She started pushing the boundaries on her violin, and with a head full of wild dark hair with a white streak up the middle, she performed regularly with local punk bands.
Joan moved to New York in 1994 and began working as a session musician, playing her violin across every genre from pop, Haitian, new classical and R&B. She became a member of Anohni’s ensemble (formerly Antony and the Johnsons) and recorded, I Am A Bird Now.
In 2002, Joan As Police Woman was born, an homage to Angie Dickinson’s 1970s cop show. Joan As Police Woman began touring with Rufus Wainwright for his Want One and Want Two albums, playing in his band and as his opening act.
Joan's first record, Real Life, earned the band “Best Rock and Pop Album,” at the Independent Music Awards. Her second album, To Survive, was chosen in 2008, as one of Q Magazine’s, “Albums of the Year.”
Similar praise was heaped on subsequent albums, 2011’s The Deep Field, 2014’s The Classic and perhaps her most rapturously received album to date, 2018’s Damned Devotion.
On being a musician, Joan said, “Music has saved my life. It’s not something I can even choose or not choose, it’s just what it is.”
Alongside consistent touring and album making, she says ‘yes' to almost every project or collaboration she is offered, noting, “I just want to be making music all the time.” This has led to a large and diverse list of co-collaborators: Tony Allen, Damon Albarn, Lou Reed, Beck, Afel Bocoum, Meshell Ndegeocello, Toshi Reagon, David Sylvian, Benjamin Lazar Davis, Sparklehorse, Laurie Anderson, Sufjan Stevens, John Cale, Aldous Harding, Woodkid, Justin Vivian Bond, RZA, Norah Jones, Lau, Doveman, Rufus Wainwright and Daniel Johnston.
In 2016 Joan had the pleasure of subbing for Guy Garvey, of the band Elbow, on his BBC 6Music show, Guy Garvey’s Finest Hour. In 2017, she and pianist, Thomas Bartlett (Doveman), co-wrote the film score for Permission, directed by Brian Crano.
In early 2019, Joan took a look back at her first fifteen years of music, and gathered together songs for a triple-disc compilation album, Joanthology, which also became an extensive and hugely acclaimed solo world tour. The collection showcased Joan’s musical vocabulary, her mastery on several instruments, and the rich quality of her writing and production. It further exemplified Joan’s solid standing as an important artist, collaborator and muse, to both audiences and fellow artists and musicians.
May 2020 saw the release of the Joan As Police Woman album, Cover Two, her second album of covers, reinterpreting songs by Gil Scott Heron, Prince, The Strokes, and Neil Young. In October 2020, Simplicity, written by Joan and Damon Albarn was released as part of Gorillaz’ Song Machine album. For years fans had requested a live album so in December 2020 Joan released the critically acclaimed LIVE, a seventeen song recording of the set Joan As Police Woman honed over several months on the road.
In January 2021 Joan was hired by NYU’s Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music at Tisch as a mentor.
November 5th 2021 will see the release of a new album, The Solution Is Restless. A joint release between Joan As Police Woman, Tony Allen and Dave Okumu.
Joan: "Damon Albarn introduced me to Afrobeat legend, Tony Allen, at the Africa Express event “The Circus” in London in 2019. Tony and I played Nina Simone's I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free and made a pact to record together in the future. In November of that year, our pact was realised. Dave Okumu, joined Tony and me in a Paris studio, where we improvised, untethered by form or tempo. The playback created excitement in the control room; the groundwork had been created. I left with the tapes without knowing exactly how I’d use them.
In April I lost a beloved mentor, Hal Willner. Hal created beautiful and unlikely collaborations among artists. Hal appointed me Musical Director of Hal’s collaboration on Neil Young’s songbook in 2004 (Prospect Park) and 2011 (Winter Olympics Vancouver). Grieving Hal’s death, I began creating songs from the Parisian improvisations, only to learn of Tony’s passing while in the studio. As my world became undone, I focused on creating the new album from the Paris collaboration.
This production style danced in my mind for years. The songs are composed in various ways. For some, I used only a one-bar drum loop; for others I created blueprints around basic A/B sections we had improvised. I used the source material in every way possible. The pandemic allowed me to explore and experiment for months in my home studio.
The album title is a lyric from Geometry Of You which muses on the numerical perfection of numbers and geometry applied to a person’s body, heart and mind. Rather than orchestrate an elaborate seduction of a lover, I simply ask them what they want. The answer is my poetic understanding of quantum theory: the solution is restless. The solution to caress a person’s heart is final and fluid, different on a different day, constantly changing."
Joan As Police Woman will begin touring Europe, Australia and New Zealand in February 2022. Joan will be handling vocals, guitar and keyboards and will be joined on stage by Parker Kindred on drums and vocals, Benjamin Lazar Davis on electric bass, samples and vocals and Eric Lane on keyboards and saxophone.
The Solution Is Restless - Song Breakdown:
The Barbarian
An intimate conversation with the brawler in me. The barbarian appears when I feel protective. It’s an exhausted part of me, but he still shows up and forces me to dance with him.
The extraordinary bass playing is by the great Meshell Ndegeocello.
“I still have access to the barbarian/ I still have access, but I can never be sure when I’ll find him/ ‘cause he’s got a lot of nerve/ he’ll throw you off his scent at any moment/ so that the wound never gets the message, never understands the war is over “
Get My Bearings
Thoughts on the impermanency of life. Damon Albarn lends his exquisite voice and beautiful piano riffs.
“Maybe it’s luck that rescues us/ Or it may be sending my love to the mountains, handing my heart to the Revelator/ Will I ever get my bearings, will I ever see”
Take Me to Your Leader
The most incendiary on the new record, written while watching Jacinda Ardern, PM of New Zealand, navigate the pandemic. Watching the world (and especially the USA) unravel, I imagined what it would be like if leaders humbly asked for help in how to run their countries with love and compassion.
“Take me to your leader/ ‘cause I’m ready to play/ can’t hold my breath any longer/ word on the street is she’s a healer/ I’m know I’m down to obey/ and don’t we need a break in the chaos”.
Masquerader
Musing on removing myself from anywhere I feel I can’t be me.
“And so I put my hands over my eyes/ Call me what you want I don’t care/ I know better than you that I’m a masquerader / Not gonna do what I always do/ ‘cause I want to live by this song/ Just need time to learn the melody/ And I will take it with me”
Dinner Date
When writing this record in NYC in 2020, the city was saturated in death and illness. I would ride my bike through empty streets to meet my friend and engineer, Adam, at Trout Recording in Brooklyn. It was a uniquely apocalyptic, one-day-at-a-time feeling. If we could make it to the dinner break alive, it would mean we were alive for one more day.
“We got the Sly singing high “Just Like A Baby”/ Oh what else do we really need/ Fireflies are magic but only if we stay alive/ Stay alive for the dinner date”
Enter The Dragon
Explores the diaphanous thread between living and dying. When mentors are no longer with us, how do we proceed?
“Take it from me and turn it to sand/ I’ll be just round the corner/ It’s the open hand I dream about, I’m running out of time”
Geometry Of You
Contemplations on math and seduction. The sensuality of quantum theory. The fascination that most of life is a paradox. I grew up learning that math is inflexible. I’ve come to understand this is not necessarily true.
“I’m formulating the lines/ Making assumptions/ Creating hypotheses/ When THE SOLUTION IS RESTLESS/ How do you like it? Oh how do you like it?”
The Love Has Got Me
Music, Water, The Body, Connection, Passion, Casting off unneeded weight, Rebirth - all manifestations of love
“Have you ever been inside a song/ That really changed the way you feel/ That really changed the way you look at the world forever/ Find the sound that moves you to forget all of your troubles and you must hear it again so you can breathe”
Perfect Shade Of Blue
The city of New York personified as a lover
“Go out and get, get what you want/ That’s how people tend to do it/ But I don’t want nothing from you/ I just want to to get closer”
Reaction
Flirting with my response to life. Living in awareness that I have only my experience and can never know what it feels to be someone or something else.
“I spy on myself and watch my reactions/ Sometimes I approve, sometimes I don’t”
DISCOGRAPHY
2021 THE SOLUTION IS RESTLESS
2021 LIVE
2020 COVER TWO
2019 JOANTHOLOGY
2019 LIVE AT BBC LP
2018 DAMNED DEVOTION
2016 LET IT BE YOU
2014 THE CLASSIC
2011 THE DEEP FIELD
2009 COVER
2008 TO SURVIVE
2006 REAL LIFE
2004 EP
Sunday Times - ‘Sensational’ // Uncut – ‘This is breathtakingly good music' // Mojo – ‘full of meditative beauty…ravishing and lovelorn’ // The Guardian -‘a voice so wondrous and moving that it makes everyone else’s seem ordinary and mundane’ // Q - ‘Beautiful’ // The Times - ‘The coolest woman in pop’ // The Economist - ‘Joan As Police Woman is one of the 21st century’s best musicians’
