Joan As Police Woman

★★★ Live SWEET POLICE/PIAS. CD/DL/LP

Fresh from the Gorillaz LP, Joan Wasser goes live. Sort of.

On November 16, 2018, Joan Wasser and her three-man Joan As Police Woman band concluded their Damned Devotion tour in New York. Eleven days later, for reasons still not wholly clear, they went into a Brooklyn studio to record their live set in one, chat-free take. Fast-forward to March last year and Wasser mixed the tapes for this year’s release. Not a career-spanner – 11 of the 17 tracks are taken from Damned Devotion – but as follies go, it’s a treat. Damned

Devotion remains the career highlight it seemed at the time and honed on the road, Tell Me, Valid Jagger and the title track take new flight. Elsewhere, there’s a lengthy, menacing cover of Prince’s Kiss, while I Defy, her 2006 collaboration with Antony Hegarty, rumbles with renewed intent. A peculiar, but far from meritless affair.