Joan As Police Woman: Lemons, Limes and Orchids
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Joan Wasser puts out her 12th studio album under the Joan As Police Woman umbrella, recorded old school live with the band, just before she makes a welcome return to the country’s venues. MK Bennett melts appropriately.
The etymology of Orchid is almost literally a translation from Greek and the related Latin, and it means testicle, though the plant looks distinctly and distinctively more labial, we can assume it was not named by a woman. Lemons and Limes, despite their sourness and bitterness are popular fruits worldwide, especially when used with economy.
First is The Dream, not a potted biography of the Compton rapper but a beautiful soft shoe shuffle of a song, ultra-modern backing with a latter day Leonard Cohen keyboard line, it should be the theme to a cop show about an impossibly cool Nordic detective, one who knows you’re guilty before you do. Full-time Heist, a smoky, late-night Jazz club where the vocals are communicated telepathically but sound like whispers, could be Side 3 of D’Angelo’s Voodoo, with that crystal clear glass cutter of a voice and its perfect phrasing.
Back Again is an upbeat, beat up slice of new Jazz and its relation to R and B with a wonderfully busy bassline and an array of small surprises, the keyboard line that comes in at the end, the string swell after the verses, melts together to make ancient sounding modernity, somehow. With Hope In My Breath is a widescreen ballad with a gorgeous Floydian chord progression that produces its own narrative without saying a word while the singing itself flies off into the universe unaided and unfiltered.
Long For Ruin is Country and Western for the space age, a tribute, hopefully, to all the bearded men of indiscriminate natures, travelling the world confused with only a guitar for company, it is something about loss, whether personal or international, and Joan’s quiet revolution in electronica with a small ‘e’. There’s a musical joy between verses that is reminiscent of Andrew Weatherall’s work on Screamadelica.
The ability, conscious or otherwise to take influence from your collaborators is a useful one. To take away the fat and leave only the best meat, the barest bones, from a long list of partners is a skill within itself. If she gets back from them what she gives, it is little wonder the list is full of difficult genius, Lou Reed, John Cale, Iggy Pop, etc, though David Byrne might be closest in terms of upscaling and maintaining integrity through his own work and other musical ventures. Using the Byrne approach of lyrical stoicism filtered through a feminist lens, it is almost at war with itself.
Started Off Free is another stand-out vocal performance, a breathless torch song that somehow sounds like both Tom Waits and Joni Mitchell, an emotional hammer, a vagrant walking on diamonds. Remember The Voice appears slight but is an unexploded bomb, self-control disguised as Peak Radiohead, short but darkly sweet.
Oh Joan, self-flagellating, slow-motion Afro-Pop is a beautiful example of her pronounced brilliance as she goes full Betty Davis, giving herself a larger than life character to play around with. Clever but never dry. Lemons, Limes And Orchids, a half remembered Irish ballad, a Siren’s shanty, when the ache in her voice breaks on the rocks instead of sailors’ bones. Occasional ghosts occur, too, Lou Reeds Berlin, Big Stars Holocaust, though more musical than lyrical. Tribute To Holding On, half in the World and half out, returns us to slow and slinky Jazz, where her incredible voice competes with itself on the high notes and simply stays up there. Never showboating and always subtle, it soars and glides nearly unnoticed like an at-risk bird of prey.
Safe To Say is PJ Harvey sitting in the quiet with The National or John Grant, a nearly ambient yet acoustically driven song of vague hope, or hope slipping away or both, like a hospital waiting room with the heating up too high. Help Is On Its Way sounds as if she decided to put a melody to a Thelonius Monk piano, and she liked it, Joan’s gain is also our gain. Like a number of these songs, it is short, storied and without the atypical pop song structure (Verse, Chorus, Verse, etc.), as if it only needed to turn up and say what it wanted to say and then leave. As in Exit, which it does.
It’s a tour de force in all the ways that have real world meaning: the songwriting, the playing, the production, the aesthetic and most of all, the vocals, that voice. There is no bombast, no ballast, and a note for the rhythms here; there’s little that is 4/4 and obvious, with the ghost of Tony Allen watching over things approvingly.
But that sweet ache, that bruised voice leaves you broken.
That perfect noise she makes that enchants the world.
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All words by MK Bennett, you can find his author’s archive here, plus his Twitter and Instagram.
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