Play it Again Sam releases Joanthology, which spans the first fifteen years of Joan as Police Woman's musical output and includes new, rare and unreleased material alongside more than thirty of her most loved songs. Curated and sequenced by Joan and manager Tom Rose this collection showcases Joan’s songwriting chops, her love of music, of experimentation and of life...

Joanthology is a compilation album that collects songs from Joan As Police Woman albums Real Life, To Survive, The Deep Field, The Classic and Damned Devotion, it also includes material from her album of cover versions, Cover, from 2016’s 'Let It Be You', recorded with Benjamin Lazar Davis, and the lead track from her debut EP 'My Gurl' (2004). This collection also features two new recordings, the self-penned ‘What A World’ and a cover of Prince’s ‘Kiss’, which was recently performed as the encore for her Damned Devotion Tour.

Joanthology contains 43 tracks (3 hr, 11 min, 57 sec) and really does showcase how Joan Wasser has evolved over her musical career. Personally, I'm more of a fan of her earlier recordings. Her last album, Damned Devotion, I found a lot harder to get to grips with,

What you do notice is how she's not content to sit in a groove delivering fan pleasing album after album. She challenges her fanbase to keep up with her as she constantly shifts and evolves, constantly pushing her own comfort zones.

There are so many highlights here - like 'Hard White Wall', 'Run for Love' and 'Flash', but this is really an album that will grow on you over time. The more time you spend with it the more you'll get out of it. I was amused, unintentionally by 'Christobel', as Wasser sounds like she's singing "Chris de Burgh".

8

Nick Smithson