Man-made climate change has been a concern for writers and directors for some time. Novels from the Genre “Climate Fiction” fill entire shelves, apocalyptic films such as “The Day after Tomorrow”, “Hell” or “Snowpiercer” regularly show how humanity fights for survival on a planet that has been destroyed by it.
And pop music? It has not produced any comparable phenomena so far. The industry is surprisingly reserved on the subject. Although there are always prominent exceptions, such as Anohni with the spooky-beautiful dance track “4 Degrees”Miley Cyrus with “1 Sun” or Childish Gambino, who contrasts the relaxed vibe of his song “Feels Like Summer” with lyrics about rising temperatures, water shortages and the death of bees. And the German rock band Die Nerven is currently taking a pessimistic look at the future of humanity in the title track of their strong new album “Wir waren hier”: “We were here/ No plant, no animal/ Was as valuable as us”says the chorus.
In addition, there are increasingly songs that do not focus directly on climate disasters, but still refer to them with individual lines, comparisons and metaphors. For example, Billie Eilish mentions the burning hills of California in “All The Good Girls Go To” – a sight that the LA-born musician grew up with. This type of subtler thematization can also be found on the recently released tenth album by the American Joan Wasser, who has been making music under the name Joan As Police Woman since 2003.
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In the twelve songs of “Lemons, Limes and Orchids” she repeatedly uses phrases that are familiar from climate change vocabulary, such as “the water is getting higher” or “the water’s warmer than you could ever imagine”. Or she ponders the development of the human species: “I wonder if our species/ Will evolve to birth our babies/ Much more able to survive”The 54-year-old never makes appeals; these sentences are usually barely noticeable or can be understood on a more general level.
This is particularly clear in the first lines of the mid-tempo song “Long For Ruin”: “It’s clear to me we got the mind/ To slow this slide to Babylon/ It’s hesitation we can’t afford/ Unless we secretly long for ruin”The hesitation mentioned could be aimed at dealing with the consequences of climate change, but also at wars or even relationships. The musician puts it this way in the press release for the album: “We seem to be intent on destroying ourselves. We seem unwilling to share resources. We seem to be turning away from ourselves and thus from each other.”
The sound of this devastating analysis is melancholic but not at all pessimistic. Warm harmonies, hopeful electric guitar touches and the soothing bass lines of Meshell Ndegeocello characterize this song, released as a single, which is one of the best on the album. It begins with “The Dream”, driven by a fast drum machine beat, on which Wasser hands over her vocal melody to one of the synths after the first verse and then dreams herself into the ocean with them.
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“Lemons, Limes and Orchids” is Joan As Police Woman’s first solo album since 2018’s “Damned Devotion” and the successor to the outstanding “The Solution Is Restless”, which she recorded almost three years ago together with the late Afrobeat pioneer Tony Allen and the multi-talented Londoner Dave Okumu. The new song “Oh Joan” is reminiscent of this collaboration with its laid-back groove. The New Yorker may not achieve the same cross-genre mastery this time, but a comparison with the three-person project is misleading anyway, as the current album is aimed in a completely different direction.
Her main aim was to showcase her voice, says the trained violinist, who also plays piano and guitar, about the work she produced herself. This focus is particularly evident in the electronically oriented, reduced tracks such as “The Dream” and “Remember The Voice” as well as the dreamy, associative meandering title song that lasts for over six and a half minutes.
She demonstrates the full range of her voice in the folky three-quarter time ballad “Started Off Free”, in which she climbs unusually high, but occasionally falls into the shallow when singing about love (“My heart is like a bridge on fire/The passage to the past is gone”).
This does not change the overall convincing impression of “Lemons, Limes and Orchids”, as it is an atmospherically dense and varied record that develops great power, especially in its quiet moments. Perfect as a companion for autumn – a few thoughts about the climate certainly can’t hurt.
