Joan As Police Woman “I Defy (Real Life Evolution Version)” arrives as the final single shared ahead of her new “Real Life Evolution” album (out June 12 via Reveal Records), which marks the 20th anniversary celebration of her debut album “Real Life”. But this song is not presented in only one form. On the album version, it appears with the fuller recorded arrangement and Krystle Warren’s vocal presence, giving the track a rich, dramatic expansion around Joan Wasser’s voice.
Alongside that, the same song is also being presented as a live video trio performance by Joan with Will Graefe and Jeremy Gustin, as part of “The Real Life Anniversary Sessions”, recorded at The Owl Music Parlor in Brooklyn by Adam Sachs and filmed by Ehud Lazin. This version lets the song breathe in a more immediate setting.
The two versions do not cancel each other out. They show how much the song can hold depending on who is inside it, how much arrangement surrounds it, and how directly the declaration at its centre is allowed to come through. The single points toward the larger shape of “Real Life Evolution,” while the live video keeps the anniversary series grounded in intimate performances, showing this song as something still active, still responsive, and still able to shift when placed in different hands.
As for the album version, “I Defy” keeps its focus on the voice before anything else, and the song gets most of its tension from how close that voice is kept. Joan As Police Woman sings close to the piano and Wurlitzer, with the keys sitting low around her rather than letting the opening spread out too quickly. The sound has that smoky, whiskey-like texture, and that feeling comes from the recording itself. It is in the grain of the keys, the way the vocal is left exposed, and the way the first stretch feels slightly worn, warm, and tense before the song lets the feeling widen.
The song moves slowly because it lets Joan’s voice set the shape of the first stretch. Her vocal holds the centre first, controlled and direct, while the piano and Wurlitzer keep the track close enough that the smallest shifts around her voice register. When the guitars, bass, drums, and strings become more present, they do not break the closeness of the opening. They make the space around her voice denser. The later section feels more passionate because the bass and drums give the vocal a firmer ground, the guitars add rougher edges around the warmth of the keys, and the strings pull more drama out of the ending, but Joan’s voice still feels like the point everything is moving around.
Krystle Warren’s voice changes the recording as soon as it appears. She is not just there to decorate the track or stand in for the song’s earlier history with Anohni. Her vocal gives Joan’s voice another body to answer, and the song stops feeling like one voice carrying the declaration alone. “I Defy” is built around a declaration of love, but this version makes that declaration feel less settled and more insistent. It sounds carried between two singers, with Joan’s restraint and Warren’s fuller tone putting different kinds of force behind the same feeling.
The theatrical quality comes from the order of those entrances. Joan stays exposed against the keys first, then Warren’s voice changes the weight of the declaration, before the drums, bass, guitars, and strings make the final stretch feel heavier and more drawn out. By the end, the layers are audible in how each part changes the vocal’s surroundings, through the keys, the rhythm section, the guitar texture, the strings, and the way the two voices sit against each other. The performance becomes more passionate without losing its shape because the emotion still feels held inside the structure of the song.
As a singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, Joan Wasser has released ten albums of original material, two cover albums, and an anthology under the moniker Joan As Police Woman. She has also collaborated with hundreds of artists, including Afrobeat legend Tony Allen, Lou Reed, Anohni & The Johnsons, Meshell Ndegeocello, Rufus Wainwright, John Cale, David Byrne, Dave Okumu, Chris Dowd, Lau, Scissor Sisters, Sparklehorse, Beck, Laurie Anderson, Lloyd Cole, Afel Bocoum, Dave Gahan, Tanya Donelly, David Sylvian, Steve Jansen and Damon Albarn / Gorillaz. She also a member of Iggy Pop’s touring band (on keys and vocals).
The ‘Real Life Evolution’ album can be pre-ordered on Bandcamp, on CD, digitally, and Limited Edition exclusive red marble vinyl. Tickets for her Real Life 20th Anniversary Tour, which sees her hit the UK and Europe later this year, are also available here. Joan’s next performance is a free show on June 18 at NYC’s Bryant Park. Joan As Police Woman can also be found on Spotify.
