When Joan As Police Woman released Real Life in 2006, it felt like the arrival of a fully formed solo artist rather than a debut in the usual sense. Joan Wasser had already lived several creative lives as a violinist, band member, collaborator and arranger, and the album gathered those histories into a poised, intimate set of songs about grief, love, survival and the possibility of carrying on. Twenty years later, Real Life Evolution returns to the same ten songs with a different kind of knowledge. The title is well chosen. These are songs that have aged, travelled, stretched, tightened and changed emotional weight through performance.
A clear sign of that evolution is the running order. The original album began with ‘Real Life’ and ended with ‘We Don’t Own It’. The new version…