Joan Wasser (Joan As Police Woman) was born in Maine USA in July 1970. She was named after Joan of Arc, adopted with her brother at infancy just outside New York City at a time when that city was truly alive with possibilities for those with a creative disposition. As the NYC underground art and music scenes blossomed through Joan’s youth, she fell in love with music very early and began the violin at 8 years old. The young Joan felt music’s power of connection and transcendence, in the same way people do when they speak of God and this has lived in her and the music she makes ever since.

Wasser had only just entered high school when she was asked to perform Mahler's Resurrection in an all-state orchestra led by the legendary conductor Benjamin Zander. Lit up with the exhilaration of the possible, she went on to study classical violin at Boston University with Yuri Mazurkevich. During her time at university Joan was drawn to new classical compositions written for smaller ensembles, she listened to Joni Mitchell, art rock, Bad Brains, Jimi Hendrix and simultaneously started pushing the boundaries on her violin (often through amplification). Wasser began performing regularly with several indie rock bands including Mind Science of The Mind, The Grifters and The Dambuilders who she recorded and toured the world with in the early 1990’s sharing stages with Weezer, Sonic Youth, Helium, Beck and a myriad of grunge era alt rock stars. Joan finally moved to New York full time in 1994, but when her soul mate Jeff Buckley drowned in a cruel twist of chance, the violin suddenly became too small to hold the immensity of emotion.

Joan began singing, first with her friends in Black Beetle to work through their grief, then in 2002 she rebirthed as Joan as Police Woman, so named in cheeky homage to Angie Dickinson’s 1970s cop show. Along the way, she became a one-woman Wrecking Crew, picking up the piano, guitar, bass and writing her own string arrangements as she composed and wrote her own songs to plumb the secret chambers of the soul. What emerged was sound soulful and sultry, part Mozart and part Nina Simone, with influences as wide as the aperture of history, channeling the universal through the most intimately personal. In 1999 she had joined Anthony & the Johnsons (Anohni) and recorded I Am A Bird Now which was an international hit and won the Mercury Music Prize in 2005. In 2004 she toured with Rufus Wainwright on his Want I & II albums. Joan had begun to make her own recordings, performing solo as opener for Rufus Wainwright in theatres around the world. Following one of her early support shows at the prestigious Birmingham Symphony Hall (UK) Joan replied to a positive message on the Myspace social platform from an enthusiast indie record store owner (Tom Rose/ Reveal Records) who wanted to start an indie label and soon after her music was being played on BBC Radio by Marc Riley. She released her EP (2004) and then beautiful debut album to the world Real Life (2006) featuring Anthony on single “I Defy” to wild acclaim and numerous Best of Year accolades. Following an 18-month world tour for Real Life, Joan lost her mother. The weight of that loss can be heard on her second album To Survive featuring David Sylvian (Japan) as guest vocalist on “Honor Wishes” and Rufus Wainwright on the album closer, “To America”.

Upon 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.”

She came out the darkness in 2009 with her first Cover record, re-interpretations of songs by Bowie, Hendrix, Iggy Pop, Sonic Youth and even Britney Spears playing a handful of more experimental duo shows whilst writing songs for 2011’s gloriously varied The Deep Field featuring pop hooks (“The Magic”) and more expansive layered textures and rhythms.

For 2014’s The Classic, Joan sprayed her entire body gold for the cover art and took on a richer, playful, soulful sound that reflected where she was in her life at that moment. Lead single “Holy City” had a video capturing the artist and her friends depicting TV shows from the ‘70s, replete with cowgirls and dancers. The shows for this tour closing with Joan leading her band acapella, often without amplification serenading the audience home with the doo-wop influenced album title track. Once home she embarked on another experimental session, using analogue synths and cut up samples as sound beds for the purest pop. The resulting record Let It Be You (Reveal 2016) with multi-instrumentalist and songwriter Benjamin Lazar Davis dazzled and surprised, especially live where the duo were joined by Son Lux’s maverick electro-percussionist Ian Chang. As with every album the songs speak of where Joan is at that moment, like diary entries, these songs were full of joy, hope and love. By Valentines Day 2018 Joan announced her Damned Devotion album for PIAS with radio hit singles “Warning Bell” and “Tell Me”. Damned Devotion became her most rapturously received work since Real Life12 years earlier and Joan played a sold out Royal Festival Hall show in London before touring the world and saying yes to a new wave of collaborations.

“I just want to be making music all the time” she says, “I am in service to this wild invisible force that makes people dance, cry, kiss, feel all the feelings and connects us to ourselves and to each other.” 

This has led to a large and diverse list of co-collaborators: Tony Allen, Damon Albarn, Lou Reed, Hal Willner, Beck, Afel Bocoum, Meshell Ndegeocello, Toshi Reagon, Sparklehorse, Laurie Anderson, Sufjan Stevens, John Cale, Aldous Harding, Woodkid, Justin Vivian Bond, RZA, Norah Jones, Lau, Doveman, Steven Bernstein, Gorillaz, Iggy Pop, Rufus Wainwright, Anohni, Nathan Larson, David Byrne and Daniel Johnston and participated in three Africa Express tours.

In early 2019, having moved forwards continuously, Joan took a look back at her first fifteen years of music, and gathered together studio and live recordings for a triple-disc compilation album, Joanthology, which also became an extensive six month 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. UK publication The Economist stating: “Joan As Police Woman is one of the 21st century’s best musicians”.

As the world stopped, Joan holed up in her home studio and created. Riding her bicycle through the empty New York streets to her studio to record and mix multiple albums worth of new material. Working on new songs she formed out of her late night Parisian jam session with afro-beat legend Tony Allen, mixing live tracks, experimenting and uniquely covering songs. In May 2020 (on her own Sweet Police label) she released Cover Two, her second album of covers, reinterpreting songs by Gil Scott Heron, Prince, The Strokes and Neil Young. In October of the same year, “Simplicity”, written by Joan and Damon Albarn, was released by Warner Brothers as part of Gorillaz’ Song Machine album. Before 2020 was out, Joan also released her first live album, a seventeen-song live in the studio recording of the set her band had honed over several months on the road. 2021 opened with an invitation to work at NYU’s Clive Davis Institute of Record Music as a mentor for production and songwriting, her teaching being such a hit with the students Joan has subsequently been invited back every semester to date.

On November 5th 2021, Joan released a new album, The Solution Is Restless. A joint release between Joan As Police Woman, master drummer Tony Allen and multi-instrumentalist Dave Okumu. This double record, had plenty of room for Joan to go even deeper into her musicality and the album was met with unanimous critical acclaim and positivity including Thom Yorke of Radiohead selecting tracks for their public playlists and an invitation to play All Points East festival with Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds and The Smile. The two years since and off the road have been spent writing and loving, collaborating and enjoying life. Now here in 2024 with the twelfth of her studio albums, Lemons, Limes, and Orchids is a crowning showcase of Joan's voice in all its metamorphic splendor, carried by her piano and strings, complemented by soul superstar Meshell Ndegeocello on bass, Chris Bruce on guitar, Daniel Mintseris on keys, and Parker Kindred and Otto Hauser taking turns on the drums. The record is a nocturne about love and loss — what else is there? — and a reckoning with our collective disorientation, part hymn to holding on and part benediction of letting go.