Joan Wasser

Joan Wasser (born July 26, 1970) is an American musician, singer-songwriter and producer who releases music as Joan As Police Woman. She began her career playing violin with the Dambuilders and played with Black Beetle, Antony and the Johnsons, and Those Bastard Souls. Since 2004 she has released her solo material as Joan As Police Woman. She has released five regular studio albums, one extended play (EP), a number of singles and two albums of cover songs. Throughout her career, she has regularly collaborated with other artists as a writer, performer and arranger.

Early life Born at the Saint Andre Home in Biddeford, Maine, to an unmarried teenage mother, Wasser was placed for adoption at infancy. She was raised in Norwalk, Connecticut. She credits her background as an adopted child with her "very extroverted" personality and dressing up a lot. She says that "when you are in a situation where you're not blood-related to your family, it does become extremely obvious that you're born with your personality".

Wasser began piano lessons at age six and violin lessons at age eight. She played violin in school and community orchestras before leaving Norwalk for her college studies. Wasser soon grew disillusioned and found that she "didn't want to make classical music my life, the Beethoven symphonies have already been played a million times and I am not going to do it any better". The band played a number of shows on the East Coast, and found an admirer in Colin Greenwood of Radiohead. On stage, Wasser managed to stand out with "bright costumes and dyed, often dreadlocked hair". Wasser augmented her role within the band, adding guitar and keyboard parts, singing vocals, as well as co-writing several songs as found on the album Against the Stars.

Wasser began to make a name for herself in the indie rock world during her time in The Dambuilders as she developed her aggressive style of playing, which led to work outside the group. Wasser moved to Brooklyn, New York in 1996, while The Dambuilders disbanded in October 1997.

Black Beetle In May 1997, her fiance of three years, musician Jeff Buckley, drowned accidentally in Memphis. She found it "such a traumatic experience of loss. I needed to grieve but I didn't know how". In late 1997, she created a band with the remaining members of Buckley's band called Black Beetle and finished an eponymous album that was never released. This was the first project where she was writing as well as fronting a band. She commented, "I found singing terrifying at first, I didn't know about the boundaries of my voice and I had no idea what words I wanted to say. The violin had been my voice for so long." The group self-released a five-track eponymous EP in 2004, as Wasser had "decided to do it without a record deal because I wanted to make music on my own terms".

Real Life In December 2005, Wasser signed a distribution deal with Reveal Records, a British indie label, which subsequently re-released the self-titled debut EP, Joan as Police Woman's full-length debut, Real Life, appeared in the UK on June 12, 2006, and through PIAS in Europe and elsewhere. She embarked on a tour around Europe where she played a mixture of headlining shows and support slots, including the Guillemots.

The album was released in the USA on June 12, 2007, on Cheap Lullaby Records based in Los Angeles. In early 2008, Real Life won in The 7th Annual Independent Music Awards for Best Pop/Rock Album. The album included three singles, "Christobel", "The Ride", and "Eternal Flame", which was supported by a video directed by Leah Meyerhoff.

To Survive Her second album, To Survive, was released in June 2008 and featured Rufus Wainwright on the song "To America". It contained the singles "The Magic", "Nervous" and "Chemmie".

The Classic On March 10, 2014, Wasser released her fourth album, The Classic, featuring the single "Holy City", featuring a video filmed by Alex de Campi.

Let It Be You In 2016, Wasser collaborated with Benjamin Lazar Davis and released the album Let It Be You in October. It was preceded by the single "Broke Me in Two". The album received mixed reviews, with DIY noting it as a "curiously unbalanced album", while AllMusic described it as "a collection of appealingly loose, lush songs full of creativity". The duo followed the release by a UK tour.

Damned Devotion The album Damned Devotion was released on February 9, 2018. Emily Mackay, writing for The Guardian, describes Wasser's return to her "characteristically languorous, smoky zone". Before the album release Wasser released the single Tell Me.

Joanthology The album Joanthology was released on May 24, 2019.

The Solution Is Restless In 2019 Wasser participated in an Africa Express concert of March 29 organized by Damon Albarn, where she met fellow performer Tony Allen. Later that year the pair collaborated, with Dave Okumu of The Invisible, on her ninth solo album, The Solution Is Restless. It was released in 2021.

Collaborations Wasser has done session work providing strings and vocals for a number of artists throughout her career. Her resume includes live performances and studio work with Elton John, Lou Reed, Rufus Wainwright, John Cale, Sheryl Crow, Scissor Sisters, Sparklehorse, Dave Gahan, Tanya Donelly, Joseph Arthur, and Fan Modine. and ex-Fishbone member Chris Dowd's Seedy Arkhestra album. In the liner notes to an album by the latter, Dowd praised her as a "soulful mothafucka".

In 2006, Wasser contributed backing vocals and violin to the track "Redwings" on Guillemots' debut album Through the Windowpane. She provided vocals and plays the violin on the song "Ballad of a Deadman" alongside David Sylvian on Steve Jansen's album Slope which was released in 2007. Wasser was credited for playing piano, violin, and guitar as well as contributing vocals on Lloyd Cole's 2010 release, Broken Record.

In 2013, she started the band 2001 with Benjamin Lazar Davis, which released its first single "Broke Me in Two" in September 2015.

Also in 2014, she began to work and perform with Scottish folk outfit Lau, producing their album The Bell That Never Rang, released in May 2015.

In 2020, Wasser appeared on the Gorillaz song "Simplicity" from their seventh album Song Machine, Season One: Strange Timez.

Discography Studio albums Album details Peak chart positionsAUT BEL DEN FRA GER IRL ITA NED SWI UK Real Life Released: June 12, 2006 Label: Reveal — 40 — — — — — 63 — 169 To Survive Released: June 9, 2008 Label: Reveal, Cheap Lullaby, PIAS — 10 17 180 — 42 44 27 93 56 Cover Released: 2009 Label: Reveal Notes: Limited release — — — — — — — — — — The Deep Field Released: January 25, 2011 Label: Reveal 60 14 9 119 54 42 72 23 66 40 The Classic Released: March 10, 2014 Label: PIAS 70 32 — — 82 78 79 32 — 44 Let It Be You Released: October 21, 2016 Label: Reveal Notes: with Benjamin Lazar Davis — 119 — — — — — — — — Damned Devotion Released: February 9, 2018 Label: PIAS 72 36 — — 78 — — 84 47 57 Cover Two Released: May 1, 2020 Label: Sweet Police — — — — — — — — — — The Solution Is Restless Released: November 5, 2021 Label: Sweet Police — — — — — — — — — — Lemons, Limes and Orchids Released: September 20, 2024 Label: PIAS — 168 — — — — — — — — "—" denotes a title that did not chart, or was not released in that territory.

Compilation albums Details Joanthology Label: PIAS Released: May 24, 2019

Live albums Details Live Label: Sweet Police Released: 2020

EPs Joan as Police Woman (self-released 2004 – CD; re-released February 27, 2006)

Singles

2020: Songs for Australia, performing a cover of Gotye's "Hearts a Mess"