The whole universe obeys love: Joan As Police Woman's new album

He doesn't have to think about how to sing. She learnt this very early on, when she realised that Sam Cooke's voice 'was the most extraordinary sound I had ever heard'. Joan Wasser wanted to be like him, to sing direct, sincere; without ornamental residues. And then there was Ray Charles and Mahailia Jackson, singing their songs with that effortless naturalness. Thus, the singer-songwriter from Connecticut discovered that she did not have to think about how to sing. Since then Joan As Police Woman has released albums, performed and collaborated with an avalanche of artists such as Jeff Buckley, Elton John, Lou Reed, Rufus Wainwright, John Cale, Tony Allen, Sparklehorse, Dave Gahan, Tanya Donelly and many others. When not busy with her music, Wasser teaches it at the Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music at New York University.

Lemons, Limes & Orchids deals with the themes of love and loss, the author understands it as 'a tribute to resilience, with a focus on coming to terms with collective collapse and disorientation. It is about how love leaves us breathless with joy and pain'. The follow up to The Solution Is Restless - a 2021 album made with the late afrobeat pioneer Tony Allen and naturalised Austrian-British singer, guitarist and record producer Dave Okumu - has been chiselled out by a star-studded ensemble: Award-winning Meshell Ndegeocello on bass, Chris Bruce on guitar, Daniel Mintseris on keyboards, while Parker Kindred and Otto Hauser alternate on drums. The result is an enchanting collection of songs suspended between contemplation and melancholy.

The first anticipation of the album was Long For Ruin, a catchy track driven by a hypnotic groove that relaxes into bittersweet refrains. Wasser explains that the song 'refers to the human race's seemingly intentional estrangement from itself'. Because 'we seem intent on destroying ourselves. Unwilling to share our resources. We seem to have turned away from ourselves and, in turn, from each other'. The album, however, opens with the analogue and digital interweaving of The Dream, continues with the soulful meditation Full-Time Heist and the funky rivulets of Back Again. The absolute star, however, is Wasser's voice: warm, versatile, rhythmic and dramatic depending on the moment. In With Hope In My Breath she is as confident as she is vulnerable in Started Off Free; she makes her way through the nocturnal electronics of Remember the Voice as well as the afrobeat echoes of Oh Joan. It is pure velvet in the emotional embraces of Tribute To Holding On and Safe To Say, bare in the concluding Help Is On It's Way, irresistible in Lemons, Limes & Orchids, the title track of this collection of songs.

'I listen to albums as a complete experience,' says Wasser. And that is exactly how one should approach these tracks, aware that, his, is much more than just a record